U.S. patent application number 15/350006 was filed with the patent office on 2017-10-12 for techniques for device configuration for messaging subscription using commerce messaging history information.
The applicant listed for this patent is Facebook, Inc.. Invention is credited to Matthew Robert Anger, Weiwei Ding, Guangyuan Liu, Qian Wang, Ming Xiao, Edward Young Zhang.
Application Number | 20170295121 15/350006 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 59998425 |
Filed Date | 2017-10-12 |
United States Patent
Application |
20170295121 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Zhang; Edward Young ; et
al. |
October 12, 2017 |
TECHNIQUES FOR DEVICE CONFIGURATION FOR MESSAGING SUBSCRIPTION
USING COMMERCE MESSAGING HISTORY INFORMATION
Abstract
Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for
device configuration using commerce messaging history information.
In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a messaging component
operative to receive a bot subscription command for a user account
with a messaging system from a client device, the bot subscription
command specifying a messaging bot; a bot framework component
operative to determine a messaging bot channel for the messaging
bot; subscribe the user account to the messaging bot channel for
the messaging bot in response to the bot subscription command; and
receive a broadcast message from the messaging bot, the messaging
bot specifying a broadcast channel; and a broadcast component
operative to add the broadcast message to a message queue for the
user account when the messaging bot channel matches the broadcast
channel. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Inventors: |
Zhang; Edward Young; (San
Francisco, CA) ; Ding; Weiwei; (Fremont, CA) ;
Wang; Qian; (Fremont, CA) ; Xiao; Ming;
(Mountain View, CA) ; Liu; Guangyuan; (Union City,
CA) ; Anger; Matthew Robert; (San Francisco,
CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Facebook, Inc. |
Menlo Park |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
59998425 |
Appl. No.: |
15/350006 |
Filed: |
November 11, 2016 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
62321080 |
Apr 11, 2016 |
|
|
|
62320855 |
Apr 11, 2016 |
|
|
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04L 67/125 20130101;
H04L 65/4076 20130101; G06F 16/248 20190101; H04L 67/04 20130101;
H04L 51/02 20130101; H04L 51/066 20130101; H04L 51/28 20130101;
G06N 20/00 20190101; H04L 51/063 20130101; H04L 67/22 20130101;
H04L 67/02 20130101; H04W 4/12 20130101; H04L 67/306 20130101; H04L
51/16 20130101; G06N 5/02 20130101; H04L 67/20 20130101; H04L 67/42
20130101; G06F 16/24578 20190101; H04L 51/18 20130101; H04L 51/32
20130101 |
International
Class: |
H04L 12/58 20060101
H04L012/58; H04L 29/06 20060101 H04L029/06; H04L 29/08 20060101
H04L029/08 |
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a bot
subscription command for a user account with a messaging system
from a client device, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot; determining a messaging bot channel for the
messaging bot; subscribing the user account to the messaging bot
channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot subscription
command; receiving a broadcast message from the messaging bot, the
broadcast message specifying a broadcast channel; and adding the
broadcast message to a message queue for the user account when the
messaging bot channel matches the broadcast channel.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a bot
subscription command for the user account; sending a subscription
configuration package to the client device for the user account,
the subscription configuration package comprising a listing of a
plurality of messaging bot channels for the messaging bot, the
subscription configuration package operative to configure the
client device for the selection of one or more selected messaging
bot channels of the plurality of messaging bot channels; and
determining the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot based
on the one or more selected messaging bot channels.
3. The method of claim 1, the bot subscription command received
based on a bot recommendation interface, the bot recommendation
interface comprising a plurality of business contacts in a business
promotion contact list, the business promotion contact list
configured based on a predicted business messaging interest model,
wherein the predicted business messaging interest model predicts
one or more of user interest in subscribing with a business, user
time spent reading subscription messages from the business, user
responsiveness to subscription notifications for the business, user
unsubscribing for channels for the business, and user blocking of
the business.
4. The method of claim 1, the bot subscription command received in
association with an information display associated with the
messaging bot in a news feed interface.
5. The method of claim 1, the bot subscription command received in
association with a web page display associated with the messaging
bot, further comprising: determining the messaging bot channel as a
broadcast channel associated with the web page display.
6. The method of claim 1, the broadcast message received in
association with a broadcast message target specification, further
comprising: determining whether the user account matches the
broadcast message target specification; and adding the broadcast
message to a message queue for the user account when the user
account matches the broadcast message target specification.
7. The method of claim 7, the broadcast message target
specification specifying one or more of demographic information,
location information, interest information, a messaging bot
engagement recency, and a web page engagement recency.
8. An apparatus, comprising: a processor circuit on a device; a
messaging component operative on the processor circuit to receive a
bot subscription command for a user account with a messaging system
from a client device, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot; a bot framework component operative to determine a
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot; subscribe the user
account to the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in
response to the bot subscription command; and receive a broadcast
message from the messaging bot, the messaging bot specifying a
broadcast channel; and a broadcast component operative to add the
broadcast message to a message queue for the user account when the
messaging bot channel matches the broadcast channel.
9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising: the bot framework
component operative to receive a bot subscription command for the
user account; send a subscription configuration package to the
client device for the user account, the subscription configuration
package comprising a listing of a plurality of messaging bot
channels for the messaging bot, the subscription configuration
package operative to configure the client device for the selection
of one or more selected messaging bot channels of the plurality of
messaging bot channels; and determine the messaging bot channel for
the messaging bot based on the one or more selected messaging bot
channels.
10. The apparatus of claim 8, the bot subscription command received
based on a bot recommendation interface, the bot recommendation
interface comprising a plurality of business contacts in a business
promotion contact list, the business promotion contact list
configured based on a predicted business messaging interest model,
wherein the predicted business messaging interest model predicts
one or more of user interest in subscribing with a business, user
time spent reading subscription messages from the business, user
responsiveness to subscription notifications for the business, user
unsubscribing for channels for the business, and user blocking of
the business.
11. The apparatus of claim 8, the bot subscription command received
in association with an information display associated with the
messaging bot in a news feed interface.
12. The apparatus of claim 8, the bot subscription command received
in association with a web page display associated with the
messaging bot, further comprising: the bot framework component
operative to determine the messaging bot channel as a broadcast
channel associated with the web page display.
13. The apparatus of claim 8, the broadcast message received in
association with a broadcast message target specification, further
comprising: the broadcast component operative to determine whether
the user account matches the broadcast message target
specification; and add the broadcast message to a message queue for
the user account when the user account matches the broadcast
message target specification.
14. The apparatus of claim 13, the broadcast message target
specification specifying one or more of demographic information,
location information, interest information, a messaging bot
engagement recency, and a web page engagement recency.
15. At least one computer-readable storage medium comprising
instructions that, when executed, cause a system to: receive a bot
subscription command for a user account with a messaging system
from a client device, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot; determine a messaging bot channel for the messaging
bot; subscribe the user account to the messaging bot channel for
the messaging bot in response to the bot subscription command;
receive a broadcast message from the messaging bot, the broadcast
message specifying a broadcast channel; and add the broadcast
message to a message queue for the user account when the messaging
bot channel matches the broadcast channel.
16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, comprising
further instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:
receive a bot subscription command for the user account; send a
subscription configuration package to the client device for the
user account, the subscription configuration package comprising a
listing of a plurality of messaging bot channels for the messaging
bot, the subscription configuration package operative to configure
the client device for the selection of one or more selected
messaging bot channels of the plurality of messaging bot channels;
and determine the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot based
on the one or more selected messaging bot channels.
17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the bot
subscription command received based on a bot recommendation
interface, the bot recommendation interface comprising a plurality
of business contacts in a business promotion contact list, the
business promotion contact list configured based on a predicted
business messaging interest model, wherein the predicted business
messaging interest model predicts one or more of user interest in
subscribing with a business, user time spent reading subscription
messages from the business, user responsiveness to subscription
notifications for the business, user unsubscribing for channels for
the business, and user blocking of the business.
18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the bot
subscription command received in association with an information
display associated with the messaging bot in a news feed
interface.
19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the bot
subscription command received in association with a web page
display associated with the messaging bot, comprising further
instructions that, when executed, cause a system to: determine the
messaging bot channel as a broadcast channel associated with the
web page display.
20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the broadcast
message received in association with a broadcast message target
specification, the broadcast message target specification
specifying one or more of demographic information, location
information, interest information, a messaging bot engagement
recency, and a web page engagement recency, comprising further
instructions that, when executed, cause a system to: determine
whether the user account matches the broadcast message target
specification; and add the broadcast message to a message queue for
the user account when the user account matches the broadcast
message target specification.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority under 35
U.S.C. .sctn.119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.
62/321,080, titled "Techniques for Device Configuration Using
Commerce Messaging History Information," attorney docket number
1360F0139Z, filed on Apr. 11, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by
reference in its entirety.
[0002] This application claims the benefit of priority under 35
U.S.C. .sctn.119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.
62/320,855, titled "Techniques for Device Configuration Using
Messaging History Information," attorney docket number 1360F0125Z,
filed on Apr. 11, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference
in its entirety.
[0003] This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser.
No. 15/054,101, titled "Techniques for Messaging Bot App
Interactions," attorney docket number 1360F0113.1, filed on Feb.
25, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its
entirety.
[0004] This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser.
No. 15/054,103, titled "Techniques for Messaging Bot Rich
Communication," attorney docket number 1360F0113.2, filed on Feb.
25, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its
entirety.
BACKGROUND
[0005] Users may interact with each other in a messaging system,
sending messages back and forth to each other in a text-based
conversation between two or more users. A user may have a user
account associated with them in the messaging system, the user
account providing an online identity for the user, a destination
for messages directed to the user, and generally coordinating the
user's access to and use of the messaging system. A user may access
the messaging system from a variety of endpoints, including mobile
devices (e.g., cellphones), desktop computers, web browsers,
specialized messaging clients, etc.
SUMMARY
[0006] The following presents a simplified summary in order to
provide a basic understanding of some novel embodiments described
herein. This summary is not an extensive overview, and it is not
intended to identify key/critical elements or to delineate the
scope thereof. Some concepts are presented in a simplified form as
a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented
later.
[0007] Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for
device configuration using commerce messaging history information.
Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniques for device
configuration using commerce messaging history information in which
a list of business contacts for promotion to a user is ordered
according to ranking weights derived from the predicted messaging
engagement for the user. In one embodiment, for example, an
apparatus may comprise. In another embodiment, for example, an
apparatus may comprise a client device.
[0008] In another embodiment, for example, an apparatus may
comprise a client front-end component operative to receive a client
inbox request for a user account from a client device, the user
account for a messaging system; and transmit an ordered business
promotion contact list to the client device in response to the
client inbox request, the ordered business promotion contact list
ordered for display for the user account based on a determined
ranking weight for each business contact on the ordered promotion
contact list; a business contact list component operative to
determine a business promotion contact list for a user account for
a messaging system; a predicted interest component operative to
determine a predicted business messaging interest for each business
contact on the business promotion contact list; and a contact
ranking component operative to determine a ranking weight for each
business contact on the business promotion contact list based on
the predicted business messaging interest for each business
contact.
[0009] In another embodiment, for example, a messaging component
operative on the processor circuit to receive a bot subscription
command for a user account with a messaging system from a client
device, the bot subscription command specifying a messaging bot; a
bot framework component operative to determine a messaging bot
channel for the messaging bot; subscribe the user account to the
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot
subscription command; and receive a broadcast message from the
messaging bot, the messaging bot specifying a broadcast channel;
and a broadcast component operative to add the broadcast message to
a message queue for the user account when the messaging bot channel
matches the broadcast channel.
[0010] Other embodiments are described and claimed.
[0011] To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends,
certain illustrative aspects are described herein in connection
with the following description and the annexed drawings. These
aspects are indicative of the various ways in which the principles
disclosed herein can be practiced and all aspects and equivalents
thereof are intended to be within the scope of the claimed subject
matter. Other advantages and novel features will become apparent
from the following detailed description when considered in
conjunction with the drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a consumer-to-business
messaging system.
[0013] FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a social graph.
[0014] FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with a
promoted business contacts display.
[0015] FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with a
business contact discovery display.
[0016] FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a consumer-to-business
messaging system processing a client inbox request.
[0017] FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a subscription command
in a consumer-to-business messaging system.
[0018] FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a broadcast message in a
consumer-to-business messaging system.
[0019] FIG. 7A illustrates an embodiment of a first logic flow for
the system of FIG. 1.
[0020] FIG. 7B illustrates an embodiment of a second logic flow for
the system of FIG. 1.
[0021] FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a centralized system for
the system of FIG. 1.
[0022] FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a distributed system for
the system of FIG. 1.
[0023] FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a computing
architecture.
[0024] FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a communications
architecture.
[0025] FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of a radio device
architecture.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0026] Users may engage with a business via a page in a social
networking service using messaging communication, as they may be
familiar with from chatting with friends. Users may discover,
engage with, and purchase products and services from these
businesses in the same messaging application they use for
communicating with friends, colleagues, and other
acquaintances.
[0027] Users may be accustomed to interacting with a business via a
web page. Even where this web page contains interactive or dynamic
elements, the interaction is still received in the presentation
style of a web page. Business pages, similar to web pages, may be
accessible via a messaging system. However, where a web page may
empower chatting via a pop-up dialog box, a messaging system may
display a conversational interaction with a business in a
messaging-specific interface. This may serve to ground the
interaction in the presentation style of messaging, thereby
humanizing and personalizing the experience. Further, as with
messaging with another person, the messaging client may maintain a
history of a conversation, allow navigation away from the
conversation and returning, and a mirroring of the conversation
across multiple user devices. In contrast, a pop-up messaging
dialog on a web page is temporary, stuck to a browser window that
cannot be closed until the conversation is completed, and rooted in
a single user device. This conversation with a business page may be
represented by a messaging bot, the messaging bot a virtual
representation of the business page in a messaging environment. The
messaging bot may function as an avatar for the business and unify
the experience of messaging with a business within a single
messaging representation.
[0028] Messaging bots may also be used for the one-way delivery of
information. Messaging bots may provide news, media, and other
content to users delivered through a messaging system. Users may
subscribe to a messaging bot for a business and receive real-time
messages from the messaging bot in their messaging client.
Messaging bots may provide content on a variety of channels,
wherein each channel corresponds to a particular interest served by
the messaging bot. For instance, a messaging bot for a news agency
may have different interest channels dedicated to different news
topics: breaking news, elections news, domestic news, foreign news,
sports news, etc. A user may specifically subscribe to a interest,
or multiple interests, for a particular messaging bot and receive
only the broadcast messages for that messaging bot that match their
one or more selected interests.
[0029] Broadcast messages may also be further refined for
particular subsets of the subscriber base for a messaging bot. A
business may be motivated to refine the set of users to which a
message is distributed in order to avoid overwhelming users with
more messages than they want to receive, or bothering users with
messages they aren't interested in, so as to avoid having users
unsubscribe. As such, a messaging system may empower a business to
specify criteria for narrowing the distribution of a broadcast
message beyond whether a user has subscribed to a messaging bot
with a particular interest. The messaging system may have access to
information about users, including biographical information,
contextual information (e.g., location information), and
user-interest information (i.e., the topics about which the user
has an interest, as may be defined separately from the interest
channels to which they subscribe), without limitation. The business
may therefore specify biographical criteria, contextual criteria,
user-interest criteria, and other criteria in association with a
broadcast message and employ the messaging system to use that
criteria to select the specific subscribing users to receive a
message.
[0030] Users may be suggested businesses with which to engage with.
In a messaging interface a user may be displayed recent threads,
such as a number of the most-recently-active threads, which may
include threads with businesses as may be represented by messaging
bots. This interface of recent threads may be useful to a user
wishing to reengage with recent conversations. However, to increase
a user's utility with a messaging system, and to increase the
messaging system's engagement with a user, the user may be
suggested business contacts with which they may wish to engage,
either for two-way messaging interactions or subscriptions to
broadcasts. This may also provide for the acquisition of new
customers for businesses by encouraging the discovery of businesses
within the messaging client.
[0031] Spam protection may be provided on both an individual and
community-wide level. A business may be prevented from contacting
individual users without at least the implied consent of those
users, such as may be received by the user messaging with the
business or specifically requesting that the business contact them
through the messaging system. The user may be empowered to withdraw
this consent, such as through the display of a prominent block
button in each message thread with a business that completely
prevents the business from messaging them again. This feedback may
then be captured to protect the community as a whole. A business
with a large amount of negative user feedback may receive reduced
promotion by the messaging system, or may even be removed from the
messaging system.
[0032] It will be appreciated that the techniques described herein
may be used in any system where users are suggested business
contacts with which to engage using a communication system, such as
a messaging system, email system, voice communication system, video
communication system, or any other communication system. The
techniques described herein with regards to business contacts in a
messaging system may be used in any embodiment in which a plurality
of business contact are promoted to a user.
[0033] Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like
reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout.
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous
specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough
understanding thereof. It may be evident, however, that the novel
embodiments can be practiced without these specific details. In
other instances, well known structures and devices are shown in
block diagram form in order to facilitate a description thereof.
The intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and
alternatives consistent with the claimed subject matter.
[0034] It is worthy to note that "a" and "b" and "c" and similar
designators as used herein are intended to be variables
representing any positive integer. Thus, for example, if an
implementation sets a value for a=5, then a complete set of
components 122 illustrated as components 122-1 through 122-a may
include components 122-1, 122-2, 122-3, 122-4 and 122-5. The
embodiments are not limited in this context.
[0035] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram for a
consumer-to-business messaging system 100. In one embodiment, the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a
computer-implemented system having software applications comprising
one or more components. Although the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100 shown in FIG. 1 has a limited number of elements in a
certain topology, it may be appreciated that the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may include more or less
elements in alternate topologies as desired for a given
implementation.
[0036] A consumer-to-business service 110 may serve as an
intermediary between consumers and businesses. Consumers and
businesses may both be users of the consumer-to-business service
110, with consumers represented via an individual user account and
businesses represented by a commerce account and, possibly, one or
more individual user accounts associated with the business, such as
individual user accounts associated with representatives and other
employees of the business. A consumer user may be represented with
a user entity in a social graph. A business or other commercial
user may be represented by a business entity in a social graph. The
relationship between the consumer user and the commercial user may
be represented by one or more edges between the user entity and
business entity in the social graph.
[0037] The consumer-to-business service 110 may comprise a
messaging system 140. The messaging system 140 may be generally
arranged to receive, store, and deliver messages between individual
entities such as individual users and collective entities such as
businesses and other organizations. The messaging system 140 may
store messages while messaging endpoints, such as messaging
endpoint 125, are offline and deliver the messages once the
messaging endpoints are available. The messaging system 140 may
empower a user to use multiple messaging endpoints (e.g., a
messaging client on a mobile device, a web browser on a personal
computer) for the same user account, with the messaging system 140
keeping all of the messaging endpoints up-to-date as to the
messaging state of the user account.
[0038] The consumer-to-business service 110 may comprise a social
networking service 130. The social networking service 130 may
maintain a social graph data structure representing a social graph.
The social graph may represent relationships between entities, such
as user entities, commerce entities, and any other sort of entity.
The social graph may represent the relationships as graph
relationships, in which all information is encoded as either being
attached to a particular node in the graph or attached to a
particular edge between two nodes in the graph. A messaging system
140 may be an element of a social networking service 130, with the
social graph containing, at least in part, social-networking
information. The whole of the consumer-to-business service 110 may
be an element or composed of elements of a social networking
service.
[0039] The consumer-to-business service 110 may comprise a consumer
portal 150. The consumer portal 150 may be a unified entry point
into the consumer-to-business service 110 for client applications
being used by consumers. The consumer portal 150 may serve as a
general user portal for non-commerce entities, including users that
are not or do not engage in commerce using the consumer-to-business
service 110. The consumer portal 150 may provide access to the
messaging system 140 and the social networking service 130. In some
embodiments, all access to the social networking service 130 may be
mediated by the consumer portal 150 in which the information of the
social networking service 130 is used and managed on behalf of the
user without the user having direct access to some or all of the
social graph information. In some embodiments, the user may have
direct access to the messaging system 140 using their user account,
with the consumer portal 150 limited to consumer functions of the
consumer-to-business service 110 with general messaging
functionality (e.g., messaging with friends) provided through
direct network communication between the messaging endpoint 125 and
the messaging system 140 without the mediation of the consumer
portal 150.
[0040] The consumer-to-business service 110 may comprise a business
portal 160. The business portal 160 may be a unified entry point
into the consumer-to-business service 110 for client application
being used by business entities. The business portal 160 may
provide access to the messaging system 140 and the social
networking service 130. In some embodiments, all access to the
social networking service 130 may be mediated by a business portal
160 in which the information of the social networking service 130
is used and managed on behalf of the business entity without the
business entity having direct access to some or all of the social
graph information. In some embodiments, the business entity may
have direct access to the messaging system 140 using their commerce
account, with the business portal 160 limited to business functions
of the consumer-to-business service 110 with general messaging
functionality (e.g., messaging with customers) provided through
direct network communication between one or more messaging bots 190
and the messaging system 140 without the mediation of the business
portal 160.
[0041] A user may participate in the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100 and interact with the consumer-to-business service 110
using a messaging endpoint 125 software application executing on a
client device 120. The client device 120 may typically be a
smartphone--a mobile phone capable of executing software
applications that provide functionality beyond that of a
conventional telephone--such as an iPhone.RTM., Android.RTM. phone,
or other smartphone. The messaging endpoint 125 may be specifically
associated with a particular messaging system 140 that forms part
of the consumer-to-business service 110 or may be a general-purpose
messaging client operative to interact with a plurality of
messaging services. The messaging endpoint 125 may interact with
one or both of the consumer portal 150 and the messaging system 140
for the performance of messaging tasks and commerce tasks.
[0042] A business entity may be represented in a messaging system
by a commerce representation comprising a collection of information
for display to a user. A commerce representation may comprise a
business page, the business page being the identity of a business
within the consumer-to-business messaging system 100. The business
page may display information regarding a business entity. The
business page may include information for the business entity, such
as one or more of a physical location for the business entity, the
operating hours of the physical location, or the hours in which the
business entity (e.g., a representative of the business entity) is
available for messaging through the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100. The business page may include social-networking
information for the business entity, such as a list of friends of a
viewing user that have "liked" or "followed" the business entity
within a social network as may be represented in a social
graph.
[0043] A commerce representation may not correspond precisely to a
business entity. A single business entity, such as a business, may
have multiple commerce representations and therefore multiple
business pages. For example, a single business may have different
representations for different brands owned and operated by the same
business. A retailer or reseller may sell multiple brands and may
have different representations for different brands that they sell.
A business may have different representations for different
geographic areas in which they operate, such as one business page
for the United States, another for Europe, another for Russia,
etc.
[0044] To aid a user in interacting with a service within a
messaging context, services may be represented as messaging bots
190 within a messaging system. A messaging bot may be a fully or
partially automated front-end to a network-accessible service that
can be represented as a participant within a message thread. In
some cases, a messaging bot may be corresponded with in a message
thread that explicitly includes the messaging bot, such as a
one-on-one message thread between a particular user and the
messaging bot. In other cases, a messaging bot may be corresponded
with in a message thread in which the messaging bot is not a
regular participant, the messaging bot a temporary participant in
the message thread for the purposes of interacting with the
service. The messaging bot may be included as a temporary
participant in any other thread, whether a one-on-one thread
between two users or a group thread between more than two
users.
[0045] A messaging bot for a commerce representation may be
presented in a messaging conversation in a messaging system 140. A
user of the messaging system 140 may interact with a business by
messaging with the messaging bot that comprises a virtual
representation of the business. A messaging bot may specifically
correspond to a commerce representation presented as a business
page, with the messaging bot being the representation of the
business page in a messaging context. Messaging with the bot may
therefore extend the presence of a commerce representation from a
business page, primarily dedicated to providing information from
the business to users, to interactive messaging in which users and
the business can engage in a conversation.
[0046] A business may use one or more commerce applications to
engage with the messaging system 140. An application may correspond
to a specific registration empowering access to the messaging
system 140 and/or social networking service 130 via an application
programming interface (API). An application may be registered with
the messaging system 140 via various registered hooks for the
application specifying how the application can be contacted by the
messaging system 140. These hooks may be used to contact the
application in response to events, such as user messaging, within
the messaging system 140. An application may be assigned a secure
token that may be used for authentication and the secure (e.g.,
encrypted) reception and sending of information with the messaging
system 140. An application may correspond to a specific AppID with
the messaging system 140 and/or social networking service 130.
Because the business may surface multiple aspects of the services
and products it provides via the agent, multiple different
applications may be used by a business entity to interact with a
user via the messaging system 140. Each application may be
subscribed with the messaging system 140 to the one or more
commerce representations, such as business pages, that it
powers.
[0047] The network 180 may comprise any form of computer network
operative to carry computer transmissions between computer devices.
The network 180 may include one or both of intranets and the
Internet. The network 180 may include cellular data and/or Wi-Fi
data networks, such as may be used to provide connectivity to a
mobile client device 120.
[0048] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may use
knowledge generated from interactions between users. The
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a component
of a social networking service 130 and may use knowledge generated
from the broader interactions of the social networking service 130.
As such, to protect the privacy of the users of the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 and the larger social
networking service 130, consumer-to-business messaging system 100
may include an authorization server (or other suitable
component(s)) that allows users to opt in to or opt out of having
their actions logged by the consumer-to-business messaging system
100 or shared with other systems (e.g., third-party systems), for
example, by setting appropriate privacy settings. A privacy setting
of a user may determine what information associated with the user
may be logged, how information associated with the user may be
logged, when information associated with the user may be logged,
who may log information associated with the user, whom information
associated with the user may be shared with, and for what purposes
information associated with the user may be logged or shared.
Authorization servers or other authorization components may be used
to enforce one or more privacy settings of the users of the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 and other elements of a
social networking service 130 through blocking, data hashing,
anonymization, or other suitable techniques as appropriate. For
example, while interactions between users of a social networking
service 130 and the social networking service 130 may be used to
learn media content preferences and the relationship between
preferences for different pieces of content, these interactions may
be anonymized prior to or as part of the learning process.
[0049] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a social graph 200. In
particular embodiments, a social-networking system may store one or
more social graphs 200 in one or more data stores as a social graph
data structure.
[0050] In particular embodiments, social graph 200 may include
multiple nodes, which may include multiple user nodes 202 and
multiple concept nodes 204. Social graph 200 may include multiple
edges 206 connecting the nodes. In particular embodiments, a
social-networking system, client system, third-party system, or any
other system or device may access social graph 200 and related
social-graph information for suitable applications. The nodes and
edges of social graph 200 may be stored as data objects, for
example, in a data store (such as a social-graph database). Such a
data store may include one or more searchable or queryable indexes
of nodes or edges of social graph 200.
[0051] In particular embodiments, a user node 202 may correspond to
a user of the social-networking system. As an example and not by
way of limitation, a user may be an individual (human user), an
entity (e.g., an enterprise, business, or third-party application),
or a group (e.g., of individuals or entities) that interacts or
communicates with or over the social-networking system. In
particular embodiments, when a user registers for an account with
the social-networking system, the social-networking system may
create a user node 202 corresponding to the user, and store the
user node 202 in one or more data stores. Users and user nodes 202
described herein may, where appropriate, refer to registered users
and user nodes 202 associated with registered users. In addition or
as an alternative, users and user nodes 202 described herein may,
where appropriate, refer to users that have not registered with the
social-networking system. In particular embodiments, a user node
202 may be associated with information provided by a user or
information gathered by various systems, including the
social-networking system. As an example and not by way of
limitation, a user may provide their name, profile picture, contact
information, birth date, sex, marital status, family status,
employment, education background, preferences, interests, or other
demographic information. In particular embodiments, a user node 202
may be associated with one or more data objects corresponding to
information associated with a user. In particular embodiments, a
user node 202 may correspond to one or more webpages. A user node
202 may be associated with a unique user identifier for the user in
the social-networking system.
[0052] In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond
to a concept. As an example and not by way of limitation, a concept
may correspond to a place (such as, for example, a movie theater,
restaurant, landmark, or city); a website (such as, for example, a
website associated with the social-network service or a third-party
website associated with a web-application server); an entity (such
as, for example, a person, business, group, sports team, or
celebrity); a resource (such as, for example, an audio file, video
file, digital photo, text file, structured document, or
application) which may be located within the social-networking
system or on an external server, such as a web-application server;
real or intellectual property (such as, for example, a sculpture,
painting, movie, game, song, idea, photograph, or written work); a
game; an activity; an idea or theory; another suitable concept; or
two or more such concepts. A concept node 204 may be associated
with information of a concept provided by a user or information
gathered by various systems, including the social-networking
system. As an example and not by way of limitation, information of
a concept may include a name or a title; one or more images (e.g.,
an image of the cover page of a book); a location (e.g., an address
or a geographical location); a website (which may be associated
with a URL); contact information (e.g., a phone number or an email
address); other suitable concept information; or any suitable
combination of such information. In particular embodiments, a
concept node 204 may be associated with one or more data objects
corresponding to information associated with concept node 204. In
particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond to one or
more webpages.
[0053] In particular embodiments, a node in social graph 200 may
represent or be represented by a webpage (which may be referred to
as a "profile page"). Profile pages may be hosted by or accessible
to the social-networking system. Profile pages may also be hosted
on third-party websites associated with a third-party server. As an
example and not by way of limitation, a profile page corresponding
to a particular external webpage may be the particular external
webpage and the profile page may correspond to a particular concept
node 204. Profile pages may be viewable by all or a selected subset
of other users. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user
node 202 may have a corresponding user-profile page in which the
corresponding user may add content, make declarations, or otherwise
express himself or herself. A business page such as business page
205 may comprise a user-profile page for a commerce entity. As
another example and not by way of limitation, a concept node 204
may have a corresponding concept-profile page in which one or more
users may add content, make declarations, or express themselves,
particularly in relation to the concept corresponding to concept
node 204.
[0054] In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may represent
a third-party webpage or resource hosted by a third-party system.
The third-party webpage or resource may include, among other
elements, content, a selectable or other icon, or other
inter-actable object (which may be implemented, for example, in
JavaScript, AJAX, or PHP codes) representing an action or activity.
As an example and not by way of limitation, a third-party webpage
may include a selectable icon such as "like," "check in," "eat,"
"recommend," or another suitable action or activity. A user viewing
the third-party webpage may perform an action by selecting one of
the icons (e.g., "eat"), causing a client system to send to the
social-networking system a message indicating the user's action. In
response to the message, the social-networking system may create an
edge (e.g., an "eat" edge) between a user node 202 corresponding to
the user and a concept node 204 corresponding to the third-party
webpage or resource and store edge 206 in one or more data
stores.
[0055] In particular embodiments, a pair of nodes in social graph
200 may be connected to each other by one or more edges 206. An
edge 206 connecting a pair of nodes may represent a relationship
between the pair of nodes. In particular embodiments, an edge 206
may include or represent one or more data objects or attributes
corresponding to the relationship between a pair of nodes. As an
example and not by way of limitation, a first user may indicate
that a second user is a "friend" of the first user. In response to
this indication, the social-networking system may send a "friend
request" to the second user. If the second user confirms the
"friend request," the social-networking system may create an edge
206 connecting the first user's user node 202 to the second user's
user node 202 in social graph 200 and store edge 206 as
social-graph information in one or more data stores. In the example
of FIG. 2, social graph 200 includes an edge 206 indicating a
friend relation between user nodes 202 of user "Amanda" and user
"Dorothy." Although this disclosure describes or illustrates
particular edges 206 with particular attributes connecting
particular user nodes 202, this disclosure contemplates any
suitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user
nodes 202. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 206
may represent a friendship, family relationship, business or
employment relationship, fan relationship, follower relationship,
visitor relationship, subscriber relationship, superior/subordinate
relationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship,
another suitable type of relationship, or two or more such
relationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally
describes nodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes
users or concepts as being connected. Herein, references to users
or concepts being connected may, where appropriate, refer to the
nodes corresponding to those users or concepts being connected in
social graph 200 by one or more edges 206.
[0056] In particular embodiments, an edge 206 between a user node
202 and a concept node 204 may represent a particular action or
activity performed by a user associated with user node 202 toward a
concept associated with a concept node 204. As an example and not
by way of limitation, as illustrated in FIG. 2, a user may "like,"
"attended," "played," "listened," "cooked," "worked at," or
"watched" a concept, each of which may correspond to a edge type or
subtype. A concept-profile page corresponding to a concept node 204
may include, for example, a selectable "check in" icon (such as,
for example, a clickable "check in" icon) or a selectable "add to
favorites" icon. Similarly, after a user clicks these icons, the
social-networking system may create a "favorite" edge or a "check
in" edge in response to a user's action corresponding to a
respective action. As another example and not by way of limitation,
a user (user "Carla") may listen to a particular song ("Across the
Sea") using a particular application (SPOTIFY, which is an online
music application). In this case, the social-networking system may
create a "listened" edge 206 and a "used" edge (as illustrated in
FIG. 2) between user nodes 202 corresponding to the user and
concept nodes 204 corresponding to the song and application to
indicate that the user listened to the song and used the
application. Moreover, the social-networking system may create a
"played" edge 206 (as illustrated in FIG. 2) between concept nodes
204 corresponding to the song and the application to indicate that
the particular song was played by the particular application. In
this case, "played" edge 206 corresponds to an action performed by
an external application (SPOTIFY) on an external audio file (the
song "Across the Sea"). Although this disclosure describes
particular edges 206 with particular attributes connecting user
nodes 202 and concept nodes 204, this disclosure contemplates any
suitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user
nodes 202 and concept nodes 204. Moreover, although this disclosure
describes edges between a user node 202 and a concept node 204
representing a single relationship, this disclosure contemplates
edges between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 representing
one or more relationships. As an example and not by way of
limitation, an edge 206 may represent both that a user likes and
has used at a particular concept. Alternatively, another edge 206
may represent each type of relationship (or multiples of a single
relationship) between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 (as
illustrated in FIG. 2 between user node 202 for user "Edwin" and
concept node 204 for "SPOTIFY").
[0057] In particular embodiments, the social-networking system may
create an edge 206 between a user node 202 and a concept node 204
in social graph 200. As an example and not by way of limitation, a
user viewing a concept-profile page (such as, for example, by using
a web browser or a special-purpose application hosted by the user's
client system) may indicate that he or she likes the concept
represented by the concept node 204 by clicking or selecting a
"Like" icon, which may cause the user's client system to send to
the social-networking system a message indicating the user's liking
of the concept associated with the concept-profile page. In
response to the message, the social-networking system may create an
edge 206 between user node 202 associated with the user and concept
node 204, as illustrated by "like" edge 206 between the user and
concept node 204. In particular embodiments, the social-networking
system may store an edge 206 in one or more data stores. In
particular embodiments, an edge 206 may be automatically formed by
the social-networking system in response to a particular user
action. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a first user
uploads a picture, watches a movie, or listens to a song, an edge
206 may be formed between user node 202 corresponding to the first
user and concept nodes 204 corresponding to those concepts.
Although this disclosure describes forming particular edges 206 in
particular manners, this disclosure contemplates forming any
suitable edges 206 in any suitable manner.
[0058] The social graph 200 may further comprise a plurality of
product nodes. Product nodes may represent particular products that
may be associated with a particular business. A business may
provide a product catalog to the consumer-to-business service 110
and the consumer-to-business service 110 may therefore represent
each of the products within the product in the social graph 200
with each product being in a distinct product node. A product node
may comprise information relating to the product, such as pricing
information, descriptive information, manufacturer information,
availability information, and other relevant information. For
example, each of the items on a menu for a restaurant may be
represented within the social graph 200 with a product node
describing each of the items. A product node may be linked by an
edge to the business providing the product. Where multiple
businesses provide a product, each business may have a distinct
product node associated with its providing of the product or may
each link to the same product node. A product node may be linked by
an edge to each user that has purchased, rated, owns, recommended,
or viewed the product, with the edge describing the nature of the
relationship (e.g., purchased, rated, owns, recommended, viewed, or
other relationship). Each of the product nodes may be associated
with a graph id and an associated merchant id by virtue of the
linked merchant business. Products available from a business may
therefore be communicated to a user by retrieving the available
product nodes linked to the user node for the business within the
social graph 200. The information for a product node may be
manipulated by the social-networking system as a product object
that encapsulates information regarding the referenced product.
[0059] FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 300
with a promoted business contacts display 305.
[0060] A client device 320 may correspond to any device used to
access a messaging system 100. While in the illustrated embodiment
of FIG. 3A the client device 320 resembles a smartphone device, it
will be appreciated that the techniques described herein may be
used with any type of device. The user interface 300 may generally
correspond to a display of a user inbox for the messaging system
140.
[0061] The user interface 300 may comprise a display of a plurality
of threads in an inbox for a user account. A portion of displayed
threads may be threads with unread messages 310. A portion of
displayed threads may be threads without unread messages 315. The
threads with unread messages 310 may be displayed with a higher
prominence than the threads without unread messages 315, such as by
placing them in a more prominent position. In the illustrated
embodiment of FIG. 3A, the user interface 300 may be scrolled
downwards to reveal more threads.
[0062] The threads with unread messages 310 may be displayed in a
higher position than the threads without unread messages 315, with
additional threads without unread messages 315 being viewable by
scrolling downwards. In some cases, sufficient threads with unread
messages 310 may exist that the threads without unread messages 315
are only visible by scrolling downwards, with the threads with
unread messages 310 being sufficient in number to take up all the
available screen space in an initial display of an inbox. The
display of threads in an inbox may comprise, for each thread, a
display of a name of a thread, a last-received or last-exchanged
messages in the thread, a preview of the contents of the thread,
and an avatar for one or more users in the thread. The name of the
thread may correspond to the name(s) of one or more participants in
the thread other than the name for the user account for the
inbox.
[0063] The user interface 300 for the messaging inbox may include a
promoted business contacts display 305. The promoted business
contacts display 305 may comprise a plurality of display elements,
wherein each display element corresponds to a business contact. The
promoted business contacts display 305 may be displayed in a
high-prominence area of an inbox, such as the top of a display of
the inbox. The promoted business contacts display 305 may be
displayed in an initial view of the inbox. The initial view of the
inbox may be the view reached when loading a messaging client. The
initial view of the inbox may be the view reached when selecting an
inbox view control in the messaging client.
[0064] The promoted business contacts display 305 may include a
display for one or more messaging bots, with the selection of a
display for a messaging bot initiating a one-on-one communication
with the messaging bot via a messaging system 140. For instance, in
a messaging system 140, the selection of the display for the
messaging bot may select or instantiate a one-on-one thread with
the messaging bot. Where the one-on-one thread already exists with
the messaging system 140, the thread may be selected and displayed,
such as may include at least a portion of the messaging history in
the message thread. Where the one-on-one thread doesn't already
exist, such as where the selecting user and the messaging bot
haven't previously messaged, the thread may be created and
displayed. In a voice communication system, a voice call may be
initiated or offered for initiation. In a video communication
system, a video call may be initiated or offered for initiation. A
display for a messaging bot may comprise an avatar for the
messaging bot (e.g., a business logo), a display of a name for a
messaging bot, or any other identifying information.
[0065] In some cases, a promoted business contacts display 305 may
be displayed for promoting two-way interactive messaging with a
messaging bot, such as for the receipt of services from a business
represented by the messaging bot. In other cases, a promoted
business contacts display 305 may be displayed for promoting
one-way messaging subscriptions with a messaging bot, such as for
the receipt of news and media from a business represented by the
messaging bot. In some cases, a pair of promoted business contacts
displays may be used and displayed in a messaging client: a
business commerce promoted business contacts display promoting
two-way interactive messaging with messaging bots and a
subscription promoted business contacts display one-way messaging
subscriptions with messaging bots. In some cases, a single
messaging bot may be used for both one-way and two-way engagement,
such as using the same messaging bot for purchasing media and
receiving free media through a subscription, with these
multi-functionality messaging bots being displayed in either or
both of one-way and two-way promoted business contacts displays. In
some cases, individual contacts, such as friends of the user with a
messaging system 140, may be promoted for messaging, which may be
displayed in combination with one or more displays of promoted
business contacts.
[0066] In some cases, a promoted business contacts display 305 may
include performance information for the one or more promoted
business contacts. Performance information may include a display of
an average response time for the business, such as may be
determined according to analysis of the actual performance of a
messaging bot.
[0067] FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 325
with a business contact discovery display.
[0068] A business contact discovery display may correspond to a
discovery interface for a messaging client. A discovery interface
may empower a user to discover business contacts and/or personal
contacts within a messaging client. A discovery interface may
correspond to a discovery tab within the messaging client of a
plurality of interface tabs. A discovery interface may be displayed
in combination with other interfaces. For example, a search
interface may default to a display of suggested contacts, with the
suggested contacts presented as the default suggestions, that may
be replaced or refined based on search information entered by the
user.
[0069] A business contact discovery display may comprise a
plurality of suggested business contacts 330. The suggested
business contacts 330 may comprise a plurality of entries, each
comprise a suggested business contact. The suggested business
contacts 330 may each be a business contact suggested to a user. A
business contact may be selected for suggestion to a user based on
a variety of factors. Business contacts may be suggested for
messaging and/or subscription. Business contacts may be selected
and/or ranked based on user information, contextual information,
and/or promotional consideration.
[0070] A display of a suggested business contact may comprise
business contact information. Business contact information may
include a business contact name 335, the business contact name 335
representing the name of a business entity for the business
contact. Business contact information may include a business
contact icon 340, the business contact icon 340 comprising an
avatar, logo, or other icon representing the business.
[0071] Business contact information may include a business typical
reply time 345. A business typical reply time 345 may comprise an
average, typical, predicted, or other reply time associated with a
business contact. The business typical reply time 345 may be
determined based on performance information generated about the
business contact. The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may
record the reply times for a business contact and use the recorded
reply times to generate the business typical reply time 345. The
reply time may comprise the amount of time between a user sending a
message to the business contact and the user receiving a reply to
the message.
[0072] The business typical reply time 345 may correspond to an
initial reply time for the business contact replying to an initial
message from a user, which may communicate the performance a user
would experience in their initial engagement with a business in a
messaging interaction. The business typical reply time 345 may
correspond to an overall reply time for the business contact
replying to any message from a user, which may communicate the
performance a user would experience in their relationship with a
business through a messaging interaction. Some business contacts
may lack a typical reply time, such as where insufficient
information has been collected to generate one, or the collected
information on reply time is sufficiently varied that there is no
reply time for the business contact that could accurately be called
typical.
[0073] The communication of a business typical reply time 345 may
serve to encourage users to engage with businesses with superior
reply times, and may therefore reward businesses with superior
reply times. In some embodiments, the selection and/or ranking of
the suggested business contacts 330 may include the reply times,
with the selection and/or ranking of the suggested business
contacts 330 preferencing the selection and/or a higher ranking for
businesses with a better (i.e., shorter) reply time.
[0074] FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a consumer-to-business
messaging system 100 processing a client inbox request 410.
[0075] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a
plurality of components. The consumer-to-business messaging system
100 may be operative to provide an ordered business promotion
contact list 490 to a client device 420. The ordered business
promotion contact list 490 may configure the client device 420 for
display of the promoted business contacts according to ranking
weights, the ranking weights determined according to a function
including a predicted business messaging interest representing a
prediction of a user's interest in messaging with the suggested
business contacts.
[0076] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a
client front-end component 440. The client front-end component 440
may be generally arranged to exchange information with client
devices to empower the client devices to engage in messaging
activity using a messaging system 140. The client front-end
component 440 may provide access to various messaging services
and/or social networking services. The client front-end component
440 may provide access to the retrieval of a messaging inbox. The
client front-end component 440 may provide an ordered business
promotion contact list 490 to a client device 420. The retrieval of
a messaging inbox may include the retrieval of the ordered business
promotion contact list 490 automatically or the ordered business
promotion contact list 490 may be performed via a distinct client
inbox request 410.
[0077] The client front-end component 440 may receive a client
inbox request 410 for a user account from a client device 420. The
user account may be an account registered with a messaging system
140. A client inbox request 410 may be a request for updates to an
inbox. Alternatively, a client inbox request 410 may be distinct
from a request for updates to an inbox. In some embodiments, a
request for an ordered business promotion contact list 490 may be
sent in coordination with a request for updates to an inbox so as
to empower the display of the ordered business promotion contact
list 490 in association with an inbox.
[0078] The client front-end component 440 may transmit an ordered
business promotion contact list 490 to the client device 420 in
response to the client inbox request 410. The ordered business
promotion contact list 490 may be ordered for display for the user
account based on a determined ranking weight for each business
contact on the ordered promotion contact list 490. The ordered
business promotion contact list 490 may be ordered for display to
the user account in association with a messaging interface for the
messaging system 140.
[0079] Each business contact on a business promotion contact list
455 and ordered business promotion contact list 490 may be
associated with a business page comprising business information
with the messaging system 140. Each business contact on the
business promotion contact list 455 and ordered business promotion
contact list 490 may be operative to open a message thread with the
business contact when selected, such as by being associated with a
control for opening the message thread.
[0080] In some cases, a client device 420 may engage in a business
contact search. The client front-end component 440 may interact
with the client device 420 to support the business contact search.
The client front-end component 440 may suggest responses to the
business contact search. The client front-end component 440 may
interact with the client device 420 to order a type-ahead for a
search entry form for the messaging system 140 based on the ranking
weight. The results for a business contact search may include
performance information for the one or more discovered business
contacts. Performance information may include a display of an
average response time for the business, such as may be determined
according to analysis of the actual performance of a messaging bot
by the messaging system 140.
[0081] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a
business contact list component 450. The business contact list
component 450 may be generally arranged to retrieve and manage
contact information for a user account. The contact information may
include both user contacts (other non-business users of the
messaging system 140) and business contacts. The business contact
list component 450 may be operative to determine a business
promotion contact list 455 for the user account. The business
contact list component 450 may receive user information 445 from
the client front-end component 440 identifying the user account for
a client device 420. For instance, the user information 445 may
comprise a user identifier uniquely identifying the user account
within the consumer-to-business messaging system 100.
[0082] The business contact list component 450 may determine a
business promotion contact list 455 for the user account. The
business contact list component 450 may exclude recently-active
business contacts from the business promotion contact list 455.
Recently-active business contacts may comprise business contacts
with which the user has engaged in messaging interactions within a
predefined time period, within a predefined recency.
Recently-active business contacts may comprise a predefined number
of the most-recent business contacts with which the user has
engaged. These techniques may be combined.
[0083] A user account may be associated with one or more friends
with a messaging system 140. In some embodiments, a user's friends
with a messaging system 140 may correspond to or include a friends
list for a social networking service. A user's friends may also
include contacts specifically with the messaging system 140.
[0084] A business promotion contact list 455 may be generated based
on the business messaging patterns for a user and/or a user's
friends. The business promotion contact list 455 for the user
account may incorporate business contacts from a variety of
sources. The business promotion contact list 455 for the user
account may incorporate a list of business contacts the user
account has messaged with via the messaging system 140. The
business promotion contact list 455 for the user account may
incorporate a list of business contacts the user account has liked
with the messaging system 140. The business promotion contact list
455 for the user account may incorporate a list of business
contacts the friends of the user account have messaged with via the
messaging system 140. The business promotion contact list 455 for
the user account may incorporate a list of business contacts the
friends the user account have liked with the messaging system 140.
The business promotion contact list may comprise a joining of one
or more of these sources and may include business contacts from
additional or alternative sources.
[0085] The business promotion contact list 455 may be generated by
forming a core corpus of business contacts and then expanding the
corpus to include additional business contacts similar to the
contacts from the starting corpus. The business contact list
component 450 may start by generating a seed business promotion
contact list for the user account. The seed business promotion
contact list may be based on a list of business contacts the user
account has messaged with via the messaging system 140. The seed
business promotion contact list may additionally or alternatively
be based on a list of business contacts the friends of the user
account have messaged with via the messaging system 140. The
business contact list component 450 may receive user information
445 comprising a list of business contacts the user account has
been used to message with via the messaging system 140 and/or a
list of business contacts the friends of the user account have
messaged with. This list, or a joining of these lists, may comprise
the initial corpus of business contacts.
[0086] The business contact list component 450 may then expand the
seed business promotion contact list to generate the business
promotion contact list 455. The business contact list component 450
may include additional business contacts with similar features to
the business contacts on the seed promotion contact list. Each
business contact may have features, such as may be defined
according to a social graph for a social networking service 130.
Business contacts may be connected based on having similar
features. The weight of features--their importance in creating
connections--may be determined based on machine-learning clustering
of business contacts. In some cases, this clustering may be
specific to particular demographics, such that different
clusterings or different connections between business contacts are
used for different groups of people. A machine learning component
may determine feature weights for expanding the seed business
promotion contact list based on a machine learning analysis of a
messaging history for the messaging system 140. The business
contact list component 450 may expand the seed business promotion
contact list based on the feature weight. In some embodiments, the
feature weights may be general across all users of the messaging
system 140. In other embodiments, the feature weights may be
selected as corresponding to particular profile information for the
user, such as may include age, gender, location (e.g., city, state,
country, or other region), or other information known about a
user.
[0087] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may comprise a
predicted interest component 460. The predicted interest component
460 may be generally arranged to determine predicted interest
information 465 for a user in relation to business contacts based
on user information for users of the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100. The user information may comprise social-networking
information for a social networking service 130, such as may
derived from a social graph 200. The predicted interest component
460 may generate predicted interest information 465 for the user
and provide the predicted interest information 465 to the contact
ranking component 480. The predicted interest information 465 may
be generated according to known techniques for generating predicted
interest. The predicted interest component 460 may be operative to
determine a predicted communication interest for each business
contact on the promotion contact list 455 for the user account.
[0088] Machine learning may be used to determine a user's predicted
business messaging interest for each business contact. A messaging
history for a messaging system may be used to match profile
features for users to business features for businesses to predict a
user's interest in messaging with a business contact. A predicted
interest component 460 may receive one or more business features
for each business contact on the business promotion contact list
and receive one or more profile features for one or more users of
the messaging system 140. The predicted interest component 460 may
receive a messaging history for the messaging system, with the
messaging history comprising historical information about various
users engagement with businesses via the messaging system 140. The
predicted interest component 460 may generate a predicted business
messaging interest model for the messaging system based on a
machine learning analysis of the messaging history, with the
predicted business messaging interest model based on the one or
more profile features and the one or more business features. The
predicted interest component 460 may thereafter determine the
predicted business messaging interest for each business contact on
the business promotion contact list based on the predicted business
messaging interest model.
[0089] In some cases, a predicted commerce communication interest
may be used to generate suggested business contacts for engaging in
two-way commerce interactions. In some cases, a predicted
subscription communication interest may be used to generate
suggested business contacts for engaging subscriptions. These cases
may be used alternatively or in combination, with only one type of
suggestions being presented to a user for a client device 420 or
both types of suggestions being presented.
[0090] Different aspects of commercial engagement may be predicted.
A predicted business messaging interest model may predict user
interest in beginning a messaging interaction with a business, such
as opening a message thread with a messaging bot and/or sending a
message to a messaging bot via the message thread. A predicted
business messaging interest model may predict user interest in
requesting a service via the messaging interaction with the
business. A predicted business messaging interest model may predict
user satisfaction from requesting the service via the messaging
interaction with the business, such as may be determined based on
user feedback. Each of these measures may be tracked for users of
the consumer-to-business messaging system 100. These measures may
be matched to user information for a user account--such as
biographical information, contextual information, and/or interest
information--using machine learning techniques to determine
predicative user features for one or more of the measures, as
represented in the predicted business messaging interest model. In
some embodiments, a single measure may be used for a user's
interest. In some embodiments, the measures may be combined to
generate an overall interest. This model may then be applied to the
user information for a user account to generate the predicted
interest information 465 for the user account.
[0091] Different aspects of subscription engagement may be
predicted. A predicted business messaging interest model may
predict user interest in subscribing with a business, as measured
by user subscriptions. A predicted business messaging interest
model may predict user time spent reading subscription messages
from the business, as measured by time spent in a messaging client
in the message thread for the messaging bot. A predicted business
messaging interest model may predict user responsiveness to
subscription notifications for the business, such as the frequency
and speed with which users respond to notifications delivered for
received subscription messages. A predicted business messaging
interest model may predict user blocking of the business, with this
measure taken as a negative indication for the messaging bot. Each
of these measures may be tracked for users of the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100. These measures may be
matched to user information for a user account--such as
biographical information, contextual information, and/or interest
information--using machine learning techniques to determine
predicative user features for one or more of the measures, as
represented in the predicted business messaging interest model. In
some embodiments, a single measure may be used for a user's
interest. In some embodiments, the measures may be combined to
generate an overall interest. This model may then be applied to the
user information for a user account to generate the predicted
interest information 465 for the user account.
[0092] Promoted business contacts may be generated with information
received from outside the messaging system 140. A messaging history
may include one or more of a short message service (SMS) messaging
history and a phone record history. The predicted interest
component 460 may generate a predicted business messaging interest
model for the messaging system 140 based on a machine learning
analysis of the messaging history and a web contact history. The
predicted business messaging interest model may, for instance,
recommend businesses or types of businesses that a user has
previously SMS messaged or called.
[0093] A machine learning model may be used once a messaging
history for messaging bot engagement has been established. However,
during an initial period for the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100 the suggestions may instead be based on heuristics. This
initial period may be used to build a messaging history for
messaging bot engagement, allowing for a transition to a machine
learning model.
[0094] A heuristic may provide the predicted business messaging
interest for each business contact on the business promotion
contact list 455. The predicted business messaging interest may be
based on a business responsiveness rate, a business responsiveness
speed, and a friend engagement measure for each business contact.
The business responsiveness rate may be a measure of what
percentage of the user messages sent to a messaging bot are
responded to by the business. The business responsiveness speed may
comprise a measure, such as an average, of the time between the
sending of user messages and the response by the messaging bot
where a response is received. The friend engagement measure may
comprise a measure of whether friends for the user account on the
messaging system 140 have liked the business contact with the
messaging system 140. Alternatively or additionally, the friend
engagement measure comprising a measure of whether friends for the
user account on the messaging system 140 have messaged with the
business contact via the messaging system 140. Where the friend
engagement measure comprises a measure of whether friends for the
user account have messaged with the business contact, a particular
degree of messaging engagement may be used, such as any engagement
at all (sending any message whatsoever to the messaging bot) or
actually engaging the messaging bot in a service, without
limitation.
[0095] The predicted business messaging interest may specifically
be based on a linear function of the business responsiveness rate,
the business responsiveness speed, and the friend engagement
measure for each business contact. The linear function may be
determined based on a linear regression of a historical data set
for the messaging system. Initially, the linear function may be
manually configured. The consumer-to-business messaging system 100
may then switch to the use of a historical data set once user
interactions have been gathered. The use of heuristics with an
early historical data set may be used to transition from a
hand-tuned predicted business messaging interest generation to a
model in which linear regression is used to tune parameters of a
linear function and then ultimately to a full machine-learning
system. The linear function may be trained on the historical data
set to select and score highly those business contacts that users
eventually engage with. Machine learning may determine weights for
the business responsiveness rate, the business responsiveness
speed, and the friend engagement measure prior to the user engaging
with the business contact that maximize the accuracy of predicting
the eventual engagement by the user.
[0096] In some cases, a predicted business messaging interest model
may be additionally based on a user context. This user context may
comprise a current user location. For instance, nearby businesses
may be suggested for messaging. Alternatively or additionally,
businesses relevant to the user's current location may be
suggested. For example, a user at an airport may be suggested taxi,
ride sharing, or other local transportation options. In some
embodiments, machine learning may include a current user context
when learning what businesses to recommend, such that businesses
receive an increased ranking weight when a location that is learned
to be relevant to the businesses is present in the user context. In
some embodiments, types of businesses may be manually or
automatically configured to receive a higher ranking weight in
certain locations, such as local transportation options when at an
airport, train station, or other long-distance transportation
location.
[0097] A contact ranking component 480 may determine a ranking
weight for each business contact on the business promotion contact
list 455 based on the predicted business messaging interest for
each business contact. In some cases, the predicted business
messaging interests may each comprise a numerical score, this
numerical score used as the ranking weight. However, in some cases,
the ranking weight may be reduced for one or more previously-viewed
business contacts of the business promotion contact list. The
ranking weight may be reduced for the one or more previously-viewed
contacts by a linear multiplier based on a number of viewings. The
contact ranking component 480 may track the number of times a
contact is included in a business promotion contact list 455 and
use this number as the number of viewings. Alternatively, the
client device 420 may track the number of times a promoted business
contact is actually displayed to the user and provide it to the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 for use as the number of
viewings. The contact ranking component 480 may order the business
promotion contact list 455 for display for the user account based
on the determined ranking weight for each business contact on the
business promotion contact list to generate the ordered business
promotion contact list 490.
[0098] In some embodiments, other information about a contact may
be incorporated into the ranking weight. The consumer-to-business
messaging system 100 may increase the ranking weight for a business
contact based on a short messaging service (SMS) history for the
user account indicating short messaging service messaging with the
business contact. In some cases, the predicted interest component
460 may increase the predicted interest based on the SMS history.
Additionally or alternatively, the ranking weight may receive an
additive or multiplicative boost based on the existence of a SMS
history between the user and the business contact. This may serve
to promote transition from the use of SMS to the use of messaging
using a messaging system 140.
[0099] FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a subscription command
510 in a consumer-to-business messaging system 100.
[0100] A messaging system 140 may comprise a plurality of
components. In some embodiments, these plurality of components may
be distributed among a plurality of servers. In other embodiments,
a single server may implement the plurality of components. In some
embodiments, a plurality of servers may be executed by a single
server device. In other embodiments, the plurality of servers may
be executed by a plurality of server devices. In some embodiments,
multiple instances of the various components and various servers
may be executed to provide redundancy, improved scaling, and other
benefits. Similarly, a client device may execute a plurality of
components as part of a messaging client.
[0101] A client device may communicate with other devices using
wireless transmissions to exchange network traffic. Exchanging
network traffic, such as may be included in the exchange of
messaging transactions, may comprise transmitting and receiving
network traffic via a network interface controller (NIC). A NIC
comprises a hardware component connecting a computer device, such
as client device, to a computer network. The NIC may be associated
with a software network interface empowering software applications
to access and use the NIC. Network traffic may be received over the
computer network as signals transmitted over data links. The
network traffic may be received by capturing these signals and
interpreting them. The NIC may receive network traffic over the
computer network and transfer the network traffic to memory storage
accessible to software applications using a network interface
application programming interface (API). The network interface
controller may be used for the network activities of the
embodiments described herein, including the interoperation of the
messaging client and messaging servers through network
communication. For example, the messaging client transmitting or
receiving messages to or from a client front-end server 535 may be
interpreted as using the network interface controller for network
access to a communications network for the transmission or
reception of information.
[0102] A messaging client may comprise a user interface component
523. A user interface component 523 may be generally arranged to
display user interfaces to a user of a client device and to receive
user commands for the messaging client for the client device. A
messaging client may comprise a client messaging component 526. A
client messaging component 526 may be generally arranged to conduct
messaging interactions on the behalf of the messaging client via
communication with the client front-end server 535.
[0103] A client front-end server 535 may be generally arranged to
act as a network access point to the messaging system 140 for
client devices such as sender client device 520. The client
front-end server 535 may comprise a messaging component 530, the
messaging component 530 generally arranged to act as a network
access point to messaging services for the messaging system 140.
The messaging component 530 may receive messages from client
devices and add the messages to message queues.
[0104] A message queue 580 may be specifically associated with the
user of sender client device 520, such as by being uniquely
associated within the messaging system 140 with a user account for
the user of sender client device 520. The message queue 580 may be
a single queue used for all messaging endpoints used by this user.
The message queue 580 may comprise a representation of updates in a
strict linear order. The message queue 580 may be organized as a
data unit according to a variety of techniques. The message queue
580 may be stored in semi-persistent memory, persistent storage,
both semi-persistent memory and persistent storage, or a
combination of the two. The message queue 580 may be organized
according to a variety of data structures, including linked lists,
arrays, and other techniques for organizing queues. The message
queue 580 may generally comprise a first-in-first-out (FIFO) queue
in which no update will be removed or retrieved from the queue
before any updates that were received prior to it.
[0105] The messaging system 140 may comprise a worker server 545.
In general, the messaging system 140 may comprise a plurality of
worker servers that may be assigned to various tasks. A worker
server 545 may comprise a message queue monitoring component 540,
the message queue monitoring component 540 arranged to monitor
updates, such as may comprise messages, in the message queue 580
and other message queues of the messaging system 140 for various
flags, indicators, and other information.
[0106] The messaging system 100 may comprise a bot front-end server
555. A bot front-end server 555 may act as an access point to
messaging bot services for the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100. The bot front-end server 555 may act as an intermediary
between the servers of the messaging system 140 and one or more
internal and/or external bot execution servers. The bot front-end
server 555 may comprise a bot framework component 550 generally
arranged to provide an accessible framework to the messaging bot
system.
[0107] In some cases, messaging bots may be executed by servers
external to the consumer-to-business messaging system 100, such as
an external bot server 575 operated by the service associated with
the bot. The bot framework component 550 may determine an external
bot server 575 for the service associated with the messaging bot.
The bot framework component 550 may submit messages to the
messaging bot by sending the messages to the external bot server
575 associated with the messaging bot. In some embodiments,
submitting messages may comprise extracting message content and
transmitting the message content to the external bot server 575
using a bot server interaction application programming interface
(API). Bot messages from the messaging bots may similarly be
received by the bot framework component 550 from an external bot
server 575.
[0108] In other cases, messaging bots may be executed by the
servers of the consumer-to-business messaging system 100. The bot
framework component 550 may determine a hosted bot server 565 for
the service associated with a messaging bot. A hosted bot server
565 may comprise a bot server maintained by the provider of the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100. The bot framework
component 550 may submit messages to the messaging bot by sending
the messages to the hosted bot server 565 associated with the
messaging bot and may receive messages from the messaging bot by
receiving them from the hosted bot server 565.
[0109] Users of the consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may
be empowered to subscribe message threads to bots to be pushed
updates from the bots. In some cases, a subscribed message thread
may be a user-to-bot message thread particular for the user to that
messaging bot. In other cases, a user-to-user message thread,
including both message threads between a pair of users and group
message threads, may be subscribed to messaging bots. A
subscription to a bot may authorize the bot to transmit messages to
the subscribed message thread. This authorization may have
restrictions, such as having a limited number of subscription
messages that may be sent within a given time period. For example,
a messaging bot may be restricted to sending at most one message a
day or a specific number of messages a day. In some embodiments,
subscriber thread preferences for a user may specify a restriction
on the frequency with which a messaging bot may message a message
thread.
[0110] A subscription command 510 may instruct a messaging system
140 and the messaging bot that the message thread associated with
the message subscription command 510 should receive subscription
messages from the messaging bot. A bot framework component 550 may
subscribe the message thread to the messaging bot in response to
the bot subscription command 510. In various embodiments, the
subscription command may be transmitted directly from the client
messaging component 526 to the bot framework component 550, may be
transmitted directly from the messaging component 530 to the bot
framework component 550, or may be detected in the message queue
580 and thereby communicated to the bot framework component
550.
[0111] The subscription command 510 may also be received by a
recipient client device 525, such as every recipient client device
for users involved in the message thread subscribed by the
subscription command 510. The subscription command 510 may be
communicated to a recipient client device 525 as a notification in
the message thread that the message thread has been subscribed to
the messaging bot. In general, any member of a message thread may
subscribe the thread to a messaging bot, unsubscribe the thread
from the messaging bot, or modify the subscriber thread preferences
for the message thread's subscription to the messaging bot. Any of
these actions may result in a notification message being added to
the message queue for each member of the message thread, the
notification message communicating the action, whether
subscription, unsubscription, or modification of subscriber thread
preferences.
[0112] Subscriptions may be maintained in a subscription registry.
A subscription registry may map between thread identifiers that
uniquely identify message threads within the messaging system 140
and subscriptions to messaging bots. A subscription registry may
comprise, without limitation, a database or database table with a
row for each registered subscription. Each registered subscription
may be associated with subscriber thread preferences for that
subscription.
[0113] A messaging component 530 may receive a bot subscription
command 510 for a user account with a messaging system 140 from a
sender client device 520, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot. The bot subscription command may be received based
on a bot recommendation interface displayed on the sender client
device 520 in a user interface component 523. A bot recommendation
interface may comprise a plurality of business contacts in a
business promotion contact list. The business promotion contact
list may be configured based on a predicted business messaging
interest model, wherein the predicted business messaging interest
model predicts one or more of user interest in subscribing with a
business, user time spent reading subscription messages from the
business, user responsiveness to subscription notifications for the
business, user unsubscribing for channels for the business, and
user blocking of the business.
[0114] A bot subscription command 510 may be received in
association with an information display associated with the
messaging bot in a news feed interface. A social networking service
130 may provide a news feed to users of the service, the news feed
comprising news feed items. News feed items may be generated based
on status changes, postings, and other information generated by
users of the social networking service 130. In some cases, users
may post content received based on a subscription to the social
networking service 130, with the service possibly thereafter adding
the content to the news feeds of one or ore friends of the user in
the service. The posted content may be associated with a display
indicating the messaging bot, and possibly in addition the interest
for the messaging bot, that brought the posted content to the
attention of the posting user via a subscription. This display may
include a control empowering the user to subscribe to the messaging
bot directly from the news feed, which may result in the
subscription command 510.
[0115] A bot subscription command 510 may be received in
association with a web page display associated with the messaging
bot. A user may view a web page for an article. The article may be
associated with the messaging bot by virtue of comprising content
that may also be delivered by the messaging bot. The web page may
advertise that the messaging bot is available for receiving content
such as the article, and may include a web plugin comprising a
control empowering subscription to the messaging bot. In some
cases, an article may be reached via a news feed, such as by
appearing as an item in a news feed, being selected by the user,
with the user then directed to a web page display for the article.
Where an article is reached via a news feed, the web page display
may include a header, footer, frame, or other visual element for
the social networking service 130. This header, footer, frame, or
other visual element may include a display of a messaging bot is
available for receiving content such as the article or that the
messaging bot is responsible for the posting user having added the
article to the news feed. A control may be associated with this
display empowering the user to subscribe to the messaging bot
directly from the news feed, which may result in the subscription
command 510. In some cases, the messaging bot channel may be
determined as a broadcast channel associated with the web page
display.
[0116] The bot framework component 550 may determine a messaging
bot channel for the messaging bot. The messaging bot channel may
correspond to an interest of a plurality of interests support by
the messaging bot. In some cases, the messaging bot channel may be
automatically determined as a default messaging bot channel for the
messaging bot, with the user then able to select what one or more
interests for the messaging bot they want to subscribe to. For
example, a user may deselect their subscription to the default
messaging bot channel and select one or more other messaging bot
channels for their subscription.
[0117] A user may be able to configure the interests that they want
to subscribe to. The bot framework component 550 may receive a bot
subscription command 510 for the user account, subscribe the user
account to the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in
response to the bot subscription command 510, and send a
subscription configuration package to the client device for the
user account. The subscription configuration package may comprise a
listing of a plurality of messaging bot channels for the messaging
bot, the subscription configuration package operative to configure
the client device for the selection of one or more selected
messaging bot channels of the plurality of messaging bot channels.
The user may be displayed a list of the messaging bot channels
available for a messaging bot and to select one or more of the
channels for subscription. The bot framework component 550 may
determine the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot based on
the one or more selected messaging bot channels.
[0118] The subscription configuration package may be for display
during an initial display of a messaging bot thread for the
messaging bot. For instance, a user subscribing to the messaging
bot from a news feed or web page display may be subscribed and sent
the subscription configuration package. The client device 520 for
the user may receive the subscription configuration package and
instantiate a message thread for the messaging bot in the messaging
client. The messaging client may display the messaging bot channel
options when the message thread is selected on the client device
520.
[0119] Users may be empowered to block messaging bots that they
have subscribed to. The messaging component 530 may receive a block
command in association with the user account for the messaging bot
and block communication from the messaging bot for the user
account. Because the messaging bot is blocked, the user may no
longer receive content from the messaging bot. As such, the bot
framework component 550 may unsubscribe the user account from any
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in response to the
block command.
[0120] The consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may attempt to
avoid supporting messaging bots that result in as drastic a user
action as blocking the bot, rather than merely unsubscribing from
the bot. The bot framework component 550 may determine a block rate
for the messaging bot and flag the messaging bot for review when
the block rate exceeds a predefined threshold. A moderator of the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 may be presented with
information for the messaging bot, including one or more of the
block rate, subscription rate, unsubscription rate, and sample bot
messages.
[0121] Users may also unsubscribe from a bot. A user unsubscribing
from a messaging bot may be a negative sign of the value of the
messaging bot to subscribers, but a less drastic one than blocking.
As such, it may be incorporated as a negative measure, but at a
less negative weight than blocking. The bot framework component 550
may receive a bot unsubscription command for the user account, the
bot subscription command specifying the messaging bot and the
messaging bot channel, and unsubscribe the user account from the
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot
unsubscription command. The bot framework component 550 may record
the bot unsubscription command in an unsubscribing history for a
machine learning model.
[0122] FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a broadcast message 610
in a consumer-to-business messaging system 100.
[0123] The bot framework component 550 may receive a broadcast
message 610 from the messaging bot, the broadcast message 610
specifying a broadcast channel. The bot framework component 550 may
assign the distribution of the broadcast message to a broadcast
component 640.
[0124] A broadcast server 645 may comprise a broadcast component
640. The broadcast component 640 may receive a broadcast message
610 from a messaging bot and determine a plurality of subscriber
threads for the broadcast message. Determining the plurality of
subscriber threads may be based on the messaging bot, such as by
comparing a messaging bot identifier for the messaging bot to the
subscription registry to retrieve the thread identifiers for the
message threads subscribed to the messaging bot.
[0125] The broadcast component 640 may add the broadcast message to
a message queue 580 for the user account when the messaging bot
channel matches the broadcast channel. A broadcast message may be
associated with a messaging bot channel origination indicator so as
to indicate the interest the user is subscribed to that resulted in
their receiving the broadcast message. This indicator may be
displayed in association with the display of the broadcast message
610 on the client device 520.
[0126] In some cases, the distribution of a broadcast message 610
may be restricted to a subset of the subscriber set for the
messaging bot and the messaging bot channel. A broadcast message
610 may be received in association with a broadcast message target
specification. The broadcast component 640 may determine whether
the user account matches the broadcast message target specification
and add the broadcast message 610 to a message queue 580 for the
user account when the user account matches the broadcast message
target specification. The broadcast message target specification
may specify one or more of demographic information, location
information, and interest information.
[0127] In some cases, broadcast messages may be restricted to those
users that have recently engaged with the messaging bot. A
broadcast message target specification may specify a messaging bot
engagement recency, which may be measured based on the recency with
which the user has opened the message thread with the messaging
bot. The broadcast message 610 may distributed to only those users
that meet a messaging bot engagement recency specification. This
may serve to reward users that engage with the messaging bot. This
may serve to focus a bot message on the most active customers that
may be most interested in receiving information from the messaging
bot, such as a message tailored to highly-active customers. In some
embodiments, other user engagement information may also be used to
select users, such as users that have engaged with the messaging
bot at a minimum specified rate within the recent past or other
engagement measures.
[0128] In some cases, broadcast messages may be restricted to those
users that have recently engaged with a business associated with
the messaging bot. A broadcast message target specification may
specify a web page engagement recency, which may be measured based
on the recency with which the user has opened a web page associated
with a business associated with the messaging bot. A web plugin may
be embedded in the web page and used to track user visitation with
the web page. The broadcast message 610 may distributed to only
those users that meet a web page engagement recency specification.
This may provide similar benefits to messaging bot engagement
recency while expanding those benefits to user engagement with
other points of exposure for a business. Other measures of user
engagement outside the messaging system 140 may also be used to
restrict access, such as a user's physical presence at a location
associated with the business, such as a retail location. A user's
physical presence at a location may be measured by, for instance,
geolocation of a user's mobile device. These measures may be
combined, such that a broadcast message target specification
specifies that a broadcast message is for delivery to users meeting
an engagement recency with any of one or more of messaging, web
access, and physical presence.
[0129] Included herein is a set of flow charts representative of
exemplary methodologies for performing novel aspects of the
disclosed architecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of
explanation, the one or more methodologies shown herein, for
example, in the form of a flow chart or flow diagram, are shown and
described as a series of acts, it is to be understood and
appreciated that the methodologies are not limited by the order of
acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith, occur in a
different order and/or concurrently with other acts from that shown
and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art will
understand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively be
represented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as
in a state diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a
methodology may be required for a novel implementation.
[0130] FIG. 7A illustrates one embodiment of a first logic flow
700. The logic flow 700 may be representative of some or all of the
operations executed by one or more embodiments described
herein.
[0131] In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 7A, the logic
flow 700 may determine a business promotion contact list for a user
account for a messaging system at block 702.
[0132] The logic flow 700 may determine a predicted business
messaging interest for each business contact on the business
promotion contact list at block 704.
[0133] The logic flow 700 may determine a ranking weight for each
business contact on the business promotion contact list based on
the predicted business messaging interest for each business contact
at block 706.
[0134] The logic flow 700 may order the business promotion contact
list for display for the user account based on the determined
ranking weight for each business contact on the business promotion
contact list at block 708.
[0135] FIG. 7B illustrates one embodiment of a second logic flow
720. The logic flow 720 may be representative of some or all of the
operations executed by one or more embodiments described
herein.
[0136] In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 7B, the logic
flow 720 may receive a bot subscription command for a user account
with a messaging system from a client device, the bot subscription
command specifying a messaging bot at block 722.
[0137] The logic flow 720 may determine a messaging bot channel for
the messaging bot at block 724.
[0138] The logic flow 720 may subscribe the user account to the
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot
subscription command at block 726.
[0139] The logic flow 720 may receive a broadcast message from the
messaging bot, the messaging bot specifying a broadcast channel at
block 728.
[0140] The logic flow 720 may add the broadcast message to a
message queue for the user account when the messaging bot channel
matches the broadcast channel at block 730.
[0141] The embodiments are not limited to these examples.
[0142] FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system
800. The centralized system 800 may implement some or all of the
structure and/or operations for the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a
single centralized server device 820.
[0143] The centralized server device 820 may comprise any
electronic device capable of receiving, processing, and sending
information for the consumer-to-business messaging system 100.
Examples of an electronic device may include without limitation an
ultra-mobile device, a mobile device, a personal digital assistant
(PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a telephone, a
digital telephone, a cellular telephone, ebook readers, a handset,
a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a
personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a
notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer, a
tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web
server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a
mini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a network
appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,
multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer
electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices,
television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point,
base station, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio
network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine,
or combination thereof. The embodiments are not limited in this
context.
[0144] The centralized server device 820 may execute processing
operations or logic for the consumer-to-business messaging system
100 using a processing component 830. The processing component 830
may comprise various hardware elements, software elements, or a
combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include
devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors,
circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors,
resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated
circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC),
programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP),
field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates,
registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and
so forth. Examples of software elements may include software
components, programs, applications, computer programs, application
programs, system programs, software development programs, machine
programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software
modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures,
software interfaces, application program interfaces (API),
instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments,
computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination
thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using
hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance
with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate,
power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data
rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and
other design or performance constraints, as desired for a given
implementation.
[0145] The centralized server device 820 may execute communications
operations or logic for the consumer-to-business messaging system
100 using communications component 840. The communications
component 840 may implement any well-known communications
techniques and protocols, such as techniques suitable for use with
packet-switched networks (e.g., public networks such as the
Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so
forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., the public switched
telephone network), or a combination of packet-switched networks
and circuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways and
translators). The communications component 840 may include various
types of standard communication elements, such as one or more
communications interfaces, network interfaces, network interface
cards (NIC), radios, wireless transmitters/receivers
(transceivers), wired and/or wireless communication media, physical
connectors, and so forth. By way of example, and not limitation,
communication media 812 includes wired communications media and
wireless communications media. Examples of wired communications
media may include a wire, cable, metal leads, printed circuit
boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductor material,
twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagated
signal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media may
include acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and other
wireless media.
[0146] The centralized server device 820 may implement the
consumer-to-business service 110 in a single computing entity. The
centralized server device 820 may communicate with other devices
over a communications media 812 using communications signals 814
via the communications component 840. The devices may be internal
or external to the centralized server device 820 as desired for a
given implementation. The centralized server device 820 may
communicate with a plurality of client devices 810, such as may
comprise the client device 120, client device 320, client device
420, sender client device 520, recipient client device 525, or any
other client device.
[0147] FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of a distributed system
900. The distributed system 900 may distribute portions of the
structure and/or operations for the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100 across multiple computing entities. Examples of
distributed system 900 may include without limitation a
client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture, an N-tier
architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, a
peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shared
database architecture, and other types of distributed systems. The
embodiments are not limited in this context.
[0148] The distributed system 900 may comprise a plurality of
distributed server devices 910. In general, the server devices 910
may be the same or similar to the centralized server device 820 as
described with reference to FIG. 8. For instance, the server
devices 910 may each comprise a processing component 930 and a
communications component 940 which are the same or similar to the
processing component 830 and the communications component 840,
respectively, as described with reference to FIG. 8. In another
example, the server devices 910 may communicate over a
communications media 912 using communications signals 914 via the
communications components 940.
[0149] The distributed server devices 910 may comprise or employ
one or more server programs that operate to perform various
methodologies in accordance with the described embodiments. In one
embodiment, for example, the distributed server devices 910 may
each implement one or more consumer-to-business servers 915. The
consumer-to-business servers 915 may collectively implement the
consumer-to-business service 110 as a distributed computing entity.
The consumer-to-business servers 915 may communicate with a
plurality of client devices 920, such as may comprise the client
device 120, client device 320, client device 420, sender client
device 520, recipient client device 525, client devices 810, or any
other client device.
[0150] FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing
architecture 1000 suitable for implementing various embodiments as
previously described. In one embodiment, the computing architecture
1000 may comprise or be implemented as part of an electronic
device. Examples of an electronic device may include those
described with reference to FIG. 8, 9, among others. The
embodiments are not limited in this context.
[0151] As used in this application, the terms "system" and
"component" are intended to refer to a computer-related entity,
either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software,
or software in execution, examples of which are provided by the
exemplary computing architecture 1000. For example, a component can
be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor,
a processor, a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical
and/or magnetic storage medium), an object, an executable, a thread
of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration,
both an application running on a server and the server can be a
component. One or more components can reside within a process
and/or thread of execution, and a component can be localized on one
computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. Further,
components may be communicatively coupled to each other by various
types of communications media to coordinate operations. The
coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directional
exchange of information. For instance, the components may
communicate information in the form of signals communicated over
the communications media. The information can be implemented as
signals allocated to various signal lines. In such allocations,
each message is a signal. Further embodiments, however, may
alternatively employ data messages. Such data messages may be sent
across various connections. Exemplary connections include parallel
interfaces, serial interfaces, and bus interfaces.
[0152] The computing architecture 1000 includes various common
computing elements, such as one or more processors, multi-core
processors, co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers,
peripherals, interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards,
audio cards, multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power
supplies, and so forth. The embodiments, however, are not limited
to implementation by the computing architecture 1000.
[0153] As shown in FIG. 10, the computing architecture 1000
comprises a processing unit 1004, a system memory 1006 and a system
bus 1008. The processing unit 1004 can be any of various
commercially available processors, including without limitation an
AMD.RTM. Athlon.RTM., Duron.RTM. and Opteron.RTM. processors;
ARM.RTM. application, embedded and secure processors; IBM.RTM. and
Motorola.RTM. DragonBall.RTM. and PowerPC.RTM. processors; IBM and
Sony.RTM. Cell processors; Intel.RTM. Celeron.RTM., Core (2)
Duo.RTM., Itanium.RTM., Pentium.RTM., Xeon.RTM., and XScale.RTM.
processors; and similar processors. Dual microprocessors,
multi-core processors, and other multi-processor architectures may
also be employed as the processing unit 1004.
[0154] The system bus 1008 provides an interface for system
components including, but not limited to, the system memory 1006 to
the processing unit 1004. The system bus 1008 can be any of several
types of bus structure that may further interconnect to a memory
bus (with or without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a
local bus using any of a variety of commercially available bus
architectures. Interface adapters may connect to the system bus
1008 via a slot architecture. Example slot architectures may
include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), Card
Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA), Micro
Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral Component
Interconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer
Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.
[0155] The computing architecture 1000 may comprise or implement
various articles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may
comprise a computer-readable storage medium to store logic.
Examples of a computer-readable storage medium may include any
tangible media capable of storing electronic data, including
volatile memory or non-volatile memory, removable or non-removable
memory, erasable or non-erasable memory, writeable or re-writeable
memory, and so forth. Examples of logic may include executable
computer program instructions implemented using any suitable type
of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code,
executable code, static code, dynamic code, object-oriented code,
visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also be at least partly
implemented as instructions contained in or on a non-transitory
computer-readable medium, which may be read and executed by one or
more processors to enable performance of the operations described
herein.
[0156] The system memory 1006 may include various types of
computer-readable storage media in the form of one or more higher
speed memory units, such as read-only memory (ROM), random-access
memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM),
synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM (SRAM), programmable ROM
(PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable
programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymer memory such as
ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase change or
ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)
memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state
memory devices (e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any
other type of storage media suitable for storing information. In
the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 10, the system memory 1006
can include non-volatile memory 1010 and/or volatile memory 1012. A
basic input/output system (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile
memory 1010.
[0157] The computer 1002 may include various types of
computer-readable storage media in the form of one or more lower
speed memory units, including an internal (or external) hard disk
drive (HDD) 1014, a magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 1016 to read
from or write to a removable magnetic disk 1018, and an optical
disk drive 1020 to read from or write to a removable optical disk
1022 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD 1014, FDD 1016 and optical
disk drive 1020 can be connected to the system bus 1008 by a HDD
interface 1024, an FDD interface 1026 and an optical drive
interface 1028, respectively. The HDD interface 1024 for external
drive implementations can include at least one or both of Universal
Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 interface technologies.
[0158] The drives and associated computer-readable media provide
volatile and/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures,
computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For example, a
number of program modules can be stored in the drives and memory
units 1010, 1012, including an operating system 1030, one or more
application programs 1032, other program modules 1034, and program
data 1036. In one embodiment, the one or more application programs
1032, other program modules 1034, and program data 1036 can
include, for example, the various applications and/or components of
the consumer-to-business messaging system 100.
[0159] A user can enter commands and information into the computer
1002 through one or more wire/wireless input devices, for example,
a keyboard 1038 and a pointing device, such as a mouse 1040. Other
input devices may include microphones, infra-red (IR) remote
controls, radio-frequency (RF) remote controls, game pads, stylus
pens, card readers, dongles, finger print readers, gloves, graphics
tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers, touch screens (e.g.,
capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs, trackpads, sensors,
styluses, and the like. These and other input devices are often
connected to the processing unit 1004 through an input device
interface 1042 that is coupled to the system bus 1008, but can be
connected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394
serial port, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so
forth.
[0160] A monitor 1044 or other type of display device is also
connected to the system bus 1008 via an interface, such as a video
adaptor 1046. The monitor 1044 may be internal or external to the
computer 1002. In addition to the monitor 1044, a computer
typically includes other peripheral output devices, such as
speakers, printers, and so forth.
[0161] The computer 1002 may operate in a networked environment
using logical connections via wire and/or wireless communications
to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 1048.
The remote computer 1048 can be a workstation, a server computer, a
router, a personal computer, portable computer,
microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peer device or
other common network node, and typically includes many or all of
the elements described relative to the computer 1002, although, for
purposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 1050 is
illustrated. The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless
connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 1052 and/or larger
networks, for example, a wide area network (WAN) 1054. Such LAN and
WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices and
companies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such
as intranets, all of which may connect to a global communications
network, for example, the Internet.
[0162] When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 1002
is connected to the LAN 1052 through a wire and/or wireless
communication network interface or adaptor 1056. The adaptor 1056
can facilitate wire and/or wireless communications to the LAN 1052,
which may also include a wireless access point disposed thereon for
communicating with the wireless functionality of the adaptor
1056.
[0163] When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 1002
can include a modem 1058, or is connected to a communications
server on the WAN 1054, or has other means for establishing
communications over the WAN 1054, such as by way of the Internet.
The modem 1058, which can be internal or external and a wire and/or
wireless device, connects to the system bus 1008 via the input
device interface 1042. In a networked environment, program modules
depicted relative to the computer 1002, or portions thereof, can be
stored in the remote memory/storage device 1050. It will be
appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and
other means of establishing a communications link between the
computers can be used.
[0164] The computer 1002 is operable to communicate with wire and
wireless devices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of
standards, such as wireless devices operatively disposed in
wireless communication (e.g., IEEE 802.10 over-the-air modulation
techniques). This includes at least Wi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity),
WiMax, and Bluetooth.TM. wireless technologies, among others. Thus,
the communication can be a predefined structure as with a
conventional network or simply an ad hoc communication between at
least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radio technologies called
IEEE 802.10x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure, reliable, fast
wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to connect
computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks
(which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).
[0165] FIG. 11 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary
communications architecture 1100 suitable for implementing various
embodiments as previously described. The communications
architecture 1100 includes various common communications elements,
such as a transmitter, receiver, transceiver, radio, network
interface, baseband processor, antenna, amplifiers, filters, power
supplies, and so forth. The embodiments, however, are not limited
to implementation by the communications architecture 1100.
[0166] As shown in FIG. 11, the communications architecture 1100
comprises includes one or more clients 1102 and servers 1104. The
clients 1102 may implement client devices such as client device
120, client device 320, client device 420, sender client device
520, recipient client device 525, client devices 810, client
devices 920, or any other client device. The servers 1104 may
implement the consumer-to-business service 110 as a centralized or
distributed entity. The clients 1102 and the servers 1104 are
operatively connected to one or more respective client data stores
1108 and server data stores 1110 that can be employed to store
information local to the respective clients 1102 and servers 1104,
such as cookies and/or associated contextual information.
[0167] The clients 1102 and the servers 1104 may communicate
information between each other using a communication framework
1106. The communications framework 1106 may implement any
well-known communications techniques and protocols. The
communications framework 1106 may be implemented as a
packet-switched network (e.g., public networks such as the
Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so
forth), a circuit-switched network (e.g., the public switched
telephone network), or a combination of a packet-switched network
and a circuit-switched network (with suitable gateways and
translators).
[0168] The communications framework 1106 may implement various
network interfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to
a communications network. A network interface may be regarded as a
specialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces
may employ connection protocols including without limitation direct
connect, Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base
T, and the like), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular
network interfaces, IEEE 802.11a-x network interfaces, IEEE 802.16
network interfaces, IEEE 802.20 network interfaces, and the like.
Further, multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with
various communications network types. For example, multiple network
interfaces may be employed to allow for the communication over
broadcast, multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing
requirements dictate a greater amount speed and capacity,
distributed network controller architectures may similarly be
employed to pool, load balance, and otherwise increase the
communicative bandwidth required by clients 1102 and the servers
1104. A communications network may be any one and the combination
of wired and/or wireless networks including without limitation a
direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, a private
network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g., the
Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network
(LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as
Nodes on the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless
network, a cellular network, and other communications networks.
[0169] FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of a device 1200 for use
in a multicarrier OFDM system, such as the consumer-to-business
messaging system 100. Device 1200 may implement, for example,
software components 1260 as described with reference to
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 and/or a logic circuit
1235. The logic circuit 1235 may include physical circuits to
perform operations described for the consumer-to-business messaging
system 100. As shown in FIG. 12, device 1200 may include a radio
interface 1210, baseband circuitry 1220, and computing platform
1230, although embodiments are not limited to this
configuration.
[0170] The device 1200 may implement some or all of the structure
and/or operations for the consumer-to-business messaging system 100
and/or logic circuit 1235 in a single computing entity, such as
entirely within a single device. Alternatively, the device 1200 may
distribute portions of the structure and/or operations for the
consumer-to-business messaging system 100 and/or logic circuit 1235
across multiple computing entities using a distributed system
architecture, such as a client-server architecture, a 3-tier
architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or
clustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave
architecture, a shared database architecture, and other types of
distributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in this
context.
[0171] In one embodiment, radio interface 1210 may include a
component or combination of components adapted for transmitting
and/or receiving single carrier or multi-carrier modulated signals
(e.g., including complementary code keying (CCK) and/or orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols) although the
embodiments are not limited to any specific over-the-air interface
or modulation scheme. Radio interface 1210 may include, for
example, a receiver 1212, a transmitter 1216 and/or a frequency
synthesizer 1214. Radio interface 1210 may include bias controls, a
crystal oscillator and/or one or more antennas 1218. In another
embodiment, radio interface 1210 may use external
voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), surface acoustic wave
filters, intermediate frequency (IF) filters and/or RF filters, as
desired. Due to the variety of potential RF interface designs an
expansive description thereof is omitted.
[0172] Baseband circuitry 1220 may communicate with radio interface
1210 to process receive and/or transmit signals and may include,
for example, an analog-to-digital converter 1222 for down
converting received signals, a digital-to-analog converter 1224 for
up converting signals for transmission. Further, baseband circuitry
1220 may include a baseband or physical layer (PHY) processing
circuit 1256 for PHY link layer processing of respective
receive/transmit signals. Baseband circuitry 1220 may include, for
example, a processing circuit 1228 for medium access control
(MAC)/data link layer processing. Baseband circuitry 1220 may
include a memory controller 1232 for communicating with processing
circuit 1228 and/or a computing platform 1230, for example, via one
or more interfaces 1234.
[0173] In some embodiments, PHY processing circuit 1226 may include
a frame construction and/or detection module, in combination with
additional circuitry such as a buffer memory, to construct and/or
deconstruct communication frames, such as radio frames.
Alternatively or in addition, MAC processing circuit 1228 may share
processing for certain of these functions or perform these
processes independent of PHY processing circuit 1226. In some
embodiments, MAC and PHY processing may be integrated into a single
circuit.
[0174] The computing platform 1230 may provide computing
functionality for the device 1200. As shown, the computing platform
1230 may include a processing component 1240. In addition to, or
alternatively of, the baseband circuitry 1220, the device 1200 may
execute processing operations or logic for the consumer-to-business
messaging system 100 and logic circuit 1235 using the processing
component 1240. The processing component 1240 (and/or PHY 1226
and/or MAC 1228) may comprise various hardware elements, software
elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements
may include devices, logic devices, components, processors,
microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements
(e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so
forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated
circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal
processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory
units, logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips,
microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software elements
may include software components, programs, applications, computer
programs, application programs, system programs, software
development programs, machine programs, operating system software,
middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines,
functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application
program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,
computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words,
values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an
embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software
elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as
desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances,
processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates,
memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance
constraints, as desired for a given implementation.
[0175] The computing platform 1230 may further include other
platform components 1250. Other platform components 1250 include
common computing elements, such as one or more processors,
multi-core processors, co-processors, memory units, chipsets,
controllers, peripherals, interfaces, oscillators, timing devices,
video cards, audio cards, multimedia input/output (I/O) components
(e.g., digital displays), power supplies, and so forth. Examples of
memory units may include without limitation various types of
computer readable and machine readable storage media in the form of
one or more higher speed memory units, such as read-only memory
(ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM),
Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM
(SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),
electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory,
polymer memory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory,
phase change or ferroelectric memory,
silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) memory, magnetic or
optical cards, an array of devices such as Redundant Array of
Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices (e.g.,
USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type of storage
media suitable for storing information.
[0176] Device 1200 may be, for example, an ultra-mobile device, a
mobile device, a fixed device, a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, a
personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a
smart phone, a telephone, a digital telephone, a cellular
telephone, user equipment, eBook readers, a handset, a one-way
pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal
computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook
computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet
computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a
network server, an Internet server, a work station, a
mini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a network
appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,
multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer
electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices,
television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point,
base station, node B, evolved node B (eNB), subscriber station,
mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router, hub,
gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof.
Accordingly, functions and/or specific configurations of device
1200 described herein, may be included or omitted in various
embodiments of device 1200, as suitably desired. In some
embodiments, device 1200 may be configured to be compatible with
protocols and frequencies associated one or more of the 3GPP LTE
Specifications and/or IEEE 1202.16 Standards for WMANs, and/or
other broadband wireless networks, cited herein, although the
embodiments are not limited in this respect.
[0177] Embodiments of device 1200 may be implemented using single
input single output (SISO) architectures. However, certain
implementations may include multiple antennas (e.g., antennas 1218)
for transmission and/or reception using adaptive antenna techniques
for beamforming or spatial division multiple access (SDMA) and/or
using MIMO communication techniques.
[0178] The components and features of device 1200 may be
implemented using any combination of discrete circuitry,
application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), logic gates
and/or single chip architectures. Further, the features of device
1200 may be implemented using microcontrollers, programmable logic
arrays and/or microprocessors or any combination of the foregoing
where suitably appropriate. It is noted that hardware, firmware
and/or software elements may be collectively or individually
referred to herein as "logic" or "circuit."
[0179] It should be appreciated that the exemplary device 1200
shown in the block diagram of FIG. 12 may represent one
functionally descriptive example of many potential implementations.
Accordingly, division, omission or inclusion of block functions
depicted in the accompanying figures does not infer that the
hardware components, circuits, software and/or elements for
implementing these functions would be necessarily be divided,
omitted, or included in embodiments.
[0180] A computer-implemented method may comprise determining a
business promotion contact list for a user account for a messaging
system; determining a predicted business messaging interest for
each business contact on the business promotion contact list;
determining a ranking weight for each business contact on the
business promotion contact list based on the predicted business
messaging interest for each business contact; and ordering the
business promotion contact list for display for the user account
based on the determined ranking weight for each business contact on
the business promotion contact list.
[0181] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
the predicted business messaging interest is based on a business
responsiveness rate, a business responsiveness speed, and a friend
engagement measure for each business contact.
[0182] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
friend engagement measure comprising a measure of whether friends
for the user account on the messaging system have liked the
business contact with the messaging system.
[0183] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
friend engagement measure comprising a measure of whether friends
for the user account on the messaging system have messaged with the
business contact via the messaging system.
[0184] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
the predicted business messaging interest is based on a linear
function of a business responsiveness rate, a business
responsiveness speed, and a friend engagement measure for each
business contact.
[0185] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
linear function determined based on a linear regression of a
historical data set for the messaging system.
[0186] A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving
one or more business features for each business contact on the
business promotion contact list; receiving one or more profile
features for one or more users of the messaging system; receiving a
messaging history for the messaging system; generating a predicted
business messaging interest model for the messaging system based on
a machine learning analysis of the messaging history, the predicted
business messaging interest model based on the one or more profile
features and the one or more business features; and determining the
predicted business messaging interest for each business contact on
the business promotion contact list based on the predicted business
messaging interest model.
[0187] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
the predicted business messaging interest model predicts one or
more of user interest in beginning a messaging interaction with a
business, user interest in requesting a service via the messaging
interaction with the business, and user satisfaction from
requesting the service via the messaging interaction with the
business.
[0188] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
the predicted business messaging interest model predicts one or
more of user interest in subscribing with a business, user time
spent reading subscription messages from the business, user
responsiveness to subscription notifications for the business, and
user blocking of the business.
[0189] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
predicted business messaging interest model additionally based on a
user context.
[0190] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the user
context comprising a current user location.
[0191] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
messaging history including one or more of a short message service
messaging history and a phone record history.
[0192] A computer-implemented method may further comprise
generating a predicted business messaging interest model for the
messaging system based on a machine learning analysis of the
messaging history and a web contact history.
[0193] A computer-implemented method may further comprise
generating a seed business promotion contact list for the user
account; and expanding the seed business promotion contact list to
generate the business promotion contact list by including
additional business contacts with similar features to the business
contacts on the seed promotion contact list.
[0194] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the user
account associated with one or more friends with the messaging
system, wherein the seed business promotion contact list is based
on a list of business contacts the user account has messaged with
via the messaging system and a list of business contacts the
friends of the user account have messaged with via the messaging
system.
[0195] A computer-implemented method may further comprise
determining feature weights for expanding the seed business
promotion contact list based on a machine learning analysis of a
messaging history for the messaging system.
[0196] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the user
account associated with one or more friends with the messaging
system, wherein the business promotion contact list for the user
account is based on one or more of a list of business contacts the
user account has messaged with via the messaging system, a list of
business contacts the user account has liked with the messaging
system, a list of business contacts the friends of the user account
have messaged with via the messaging system, and a list of business
contacts the friends the user account have liked with the messaging
system.
[0197] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
ranking weight reduced for one or more previously-viewed business
contacts of the business promotion contact list.
[0198] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
each business contact on the business promotion contact list is
associated with a business page comprising business information
with the messaging system.
[0199] A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein
each business contact on the business promotion contact list is
operative to open a message thread with the business contact when
selected.
[0200] An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a
client front-end component operative on the processor circuit to
receive a client inbox request for a user account from a client
device, the user account for a messaging system; and transmit an
ordered business promotion contact list to the client device in
response to the client inbox request, the ordered business
promotion contact list ordered for display for the user account
based on a determined ranking weight for each business contact on
the ordered promotion contact list; a business contact list
component operative to determine a business promotion contact list
for a user account for a messaging system; a predicted interest
component operative to determine a predicted business messaging
interest for each business contact on the business promotion
contact list; and a contact ranking component operative to
determine a ranking weight for each business contact on the
business promotion contact list based on the predicted business
messaging interest for each business contact. The apparatus may be
operative to implement any of the computer-implemented methods
described herein.
[0201] A computer-implemented method may comprise receiving a bot
subscription command for a user account with a messaging system
from a client device, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot; determining a messaging bot channel for the
messaging bot; subscribing the user account to the messaging bot
channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot subscription
command; receiving a broadcast message from the messaging bot, the
broadcast message specifying a broadcast channel; and adding the
broadcast message to a message queue for the user account when the
messaging bot channel matches the broadcast channel.
[0202] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
messaging bot channel automatically determined as a default
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot.
[0203] A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving
a block command in association with the user account for the
messaging bot; blocking communication from the messaging bot for
the user account; and unsubscribing the user account from any
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot.
[0204] A computer-implemented method may further comprise
determining a block rate for the messaging bot; and flagging the
messaging bot for review when the block rate exceeds a predefined
threshold.
[0205] A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving
a bot subscription command for the user account; sending a
subscription configuration package to the client device for the
user account, the subscription configuration package comprising a
listing of a plurality of messaging bot channels for the messaging
bot, the subscription configuration package operative to configure
the client device for the selection of one or more selected
messaging bot channels of the plurality of messaging bot channels;
and determining the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot
based on the one or more selected messaging bot channels.
[0206] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
subscription configuration package for display during an initial
display of a messaging bot thread for the messaging bot.
[0207] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the bot
subscription command received based on a bot recommendation
interface.
[0208] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the bot
recommendation interface comprising a plurality of business
contacts in a business promotion contact list, the business
promotion contact list configured based on a predicted business
messaging interest model, wherein the predicted business messaging
interest model predicts one or more of user interest in subscribing
with a business, user time spent reading subscription messages from
the business, user responsiveness to subscription notifications for
the business, user unsubscribing for channels for the business, and
user blocking of the business.
[0209] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the bot
subscription command received in association with an information
display associated with the messaging bot in a news feed
interface.
[0210] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the bot
subscription command received in association with a web page
display associated with the messaging bot.
[0211] A computer-implemented method may further comprise
determining the messaging bot channel as a broadcast channel
associated with the web page display.
[0212] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
broadcast message associated with a messaging bot channel
origination indicator.
[0213] A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving
a bot unsubscription command for the user account, the bot
subscription command specifying the messaging bot and the messaging
bot channel; unsubscribing the user account from the messaging bot
channel for the messaging bot in response to the bot unsubscription
command; and recording the bot unsubscription command in an
unsubscribing history for a machine learning model.
[0214] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
broadcast message received in association with a broadcast message
target specification, further comprising: determining whether the
user account matches the broadcast message target specification;
and adding the broadcast message to a message queue for the user
account when the user account matches the broadcast message target
specification.
[0215] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
broadcast message target specification specifying one or more of
demographic information, location information, and interest
information.
[0216] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
broadcast message target specification specifying a messaging bot
engagement recency.
[0217] A computer-implemented method may further comprise the
broadcast message target specification specifying a web page
engagement recency.
[0218] An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a
messaging component operative on the processor circuit to receive a
bot subscription command for a user account with a messaging system
from a client device, the bot subscription command specifying a
messaging bot; a bot framework component operative to determine a
messaging bot channel for the messaging bot; subscribe the user
account to the messaging bot channel for the messaging bot in
response to the bot subscription command; and receive a broadcast
message from the messaging bot, the messaging bot specifying a
broadcast channel; and a broadcast component operative to add the
broadcast message to a message queue for the user account when the
messaging bot channel matches the broadcast channel. The apparatus
may be operative to implement any of the computer-implemented
methods described herein.
[0219] At least one computer-readable storage medium may comprise
instructions that, when executed, cause a system to perform any of
the computer-implemented methods described herein.
[0220] Some embodiments may be described using the expression "one
embodiment" or "an embodiment" along with their derivatives. These
terms mean that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic
described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least
one embodiment. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment"
in various places in the specification are not necessarily all
referring to the same embodiment. Further, some embodiments may be
described using the expression "coupled" and "connected" along with
their derivatives. These terms are not necessarily intended as
synonyms for each other. For example, some embodiments may be
described using the terms "connected" and/or "coupled" to indicate
that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical
contact with each other. The term "coupled," however, may also mean
that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each
other, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.
[0221] With general reference to notations and nomenclature used
herein, the detailed descriptions herein may be presented in terms
of program procedures executed on a computer or network of
computers. These procedural descriptions and representations are
used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the
substance of their work to others skilled in the art.
[0222] A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a
self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result.
These operations are those requiring physical manipulations of
physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these
quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic or optical signals
capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and
otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally
for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits,
values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.
It should be noted, however, that all of these and similar terms
are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and
are merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.
[0223] Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to
in terms, such as adding or comparing, which are commonly
associated with mental operations performed by a human operator. No
such capability of a human operator is necessary, or desirable in
most cases, in any of the operations described herein which form
part of one or more embodiments. Rather, the operations are machine
operations. Useful machines for performing operations of various
embodiments include general purpose digital computers or similar
devices.
[0224] Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for
performing these operations. This apparatus may be specially
constructed for the required purpose or it may comprise a general
purpose computer as selectively activated or reconfigured by a
computer program stored in the computer. The procedures presented
herein are not inherently related to a particular computer or other
apparatus. Various general purpose machines may be used with
programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may
prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform
the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of
these machines will appear from the description given.
[0225] It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is
provided to allow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the
technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that
it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of
the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it
can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single
embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This
method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an
intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than
are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following
claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all
features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following
claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with
each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment. In the
appended claims, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as
the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising"
and "wherein," respectively. Moreover, the terms "first," "second,"
"third," and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are not
intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.
[0226] What has been described above includes examples of the
disclosed architecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe
every conceivable combination of components and/or methodologies,
but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many
further combinations and permutations are possible. Accordingly,
the novel architecture is intended to embrace all such alterations,
modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope
of the appended claims.
* * * * *